


Wake up, Sunshine

by MiaBrown



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Based on an All Time Low Song, Endgame Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, F/M, Half-Reveal, Hawkmoth Final Battle, Identity Reveal, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Minor Character Death, NOT salt, Post-Episode: s03 Miracle Queen (The Battle of the Miraculous Part 2), Underage Drinking, machiavellian!LuckyCharm, they are aged up to 16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 61,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24428821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaBrown/pseuds/MiaBrown
Summary: The Guardian is responsible for her heroes. So, it's practically in her job description to know their identities, isn't it? But when it turns out, Adrien Agreste was behind the black mask all along, things get a little complicated.Not like Marinette planned to fall back in love with her old crush all over again. Certainly not when they're both in two separate, functioning relationships. But things like that happen, even with the best of us.However, there is nothing Paris’ red-spotted superheroine couldn’t handle, may it be breakups, confessions, hard decisions or fighting her arch enemy.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, but not at the same time - Relationship
Comments: 181
Kudos: 235





	1. Some kind of disaster

**Author's Note:**

> My beta was the amazing [Clare](https://1kiss4surrender.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> This work was selected for book-club on the Miraculous Fanworks Discord server, where [SteelBlaidd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteelBlaidd) made a whole [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Q5RVaEmqQwqhvd2WqLjSr?si=4yUfnbRqS3Kc7g2kbKbeXQ) for it. There are songs selected for every chapter, each starting with the song I named the chapter after. Feel free to listen to it and I hope you have fun!  
> Thank you so much for putting this together, Steel! <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, it's [some kind of disaster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLTkSUCq1u8)

Marinette sat in the park and admired her surroundings. Her sketchbook sat beside her, untouched since she took place on the blanket. The sun was shining, birds chirping on the trees, welcoming the warm weather. Families were taking their dogs for a walk and playing with their kids outside. It was a perfect Saturday afternoon in Paris.

“Okay, how about Sugarpie?” Luka asked finally, furrowing his brows in consideration.

“Only if I get to call you Honeybunch!” Marinette joked, hiding how much she despised this particular nickname as she turned to face the boy sitting next to her.

Luka. Luka was her boyfriend. She turned to face her boyfriend. After a month of dating, it still sounded surreal.

“That’s a given, Cupcake!” His teal eyes were holding hers, as he pulled her closer.

“Maybe we could use our real names for a little while longer. No need to stress this over, Cuddles.” Marinette said while hiding a mischievous smile. She crept even closer to him, so she could place her head on his shoulder. She absentmindedly touched the necklace hanging in her neck. It was simple. A plain chain, on it a cheap ring. It was from one of those automats for kids, where you put in a euro and got a mystery gift for it. Once they were in the mall Luka spun one for her, and it gave them this ring, that was too big for any of her fingers. But she wasn’t a design queen for nothing. As soon as she arrived home she searched for a chain, combined the two and was wearing it ever since then.

“No way, this ends now, Angel! I won’t go another day without a cute nickname for you!” Luka protested.

In the last weeks, this became a sort of hobby for them. During their dates, they would try to find a fitting pet name for one another, but luck has been avoiding them so far. It all sounded ridiculous and somehow ill-fitting. But it didn’t bother Marinette. Trying out these new words she hasn’t used before for anyone was fun. Also, she happened to really like the name, Luka, so she didn’t mind if she had to use this name, for the rest of their relationship. Probably for eternity.

“Speaking of cute. Has Juleka shown you the possible variations I draw of altering the Kitty Section’s masks? I thought some change would be nice before the concert next weekend. It would be such a shame if your fans couldn’t see anything from your pretty faces.” Marinette giggled, booping his nose.

“No, she hasn’t. I guess, she thought that we would be hanging out soon enough, Melody.” His smile was warm, just like his lips on hers when he leaned down for a quick, innocent kiss. “Looks like she was right. So, care to show me your fabulous new designs, Cinderella?”

Marinette took the sketchbook from the blanket and started to search for the designs, while excitedly explaining what was new about them, and how they were each unique and represented some hidden meaning. Luka listened to her carefully, making an affirmative sound every now and then, while carefully balancing his attention between the drawing pad and his hectic girlfriend.

This was the thing about Luka, he was so easy to talk to. He paid attention, showed concern and had advice for every occasion. He was always so chill like nothing could upset him, and first and foremost he was a firm believer of straightforward communication. He was the peaceful and mature friend Marinette never thought she needed.

“These are really cool Marinette! Thank you!” His smile spread across his whole face, to the edges of his eyes. “Can you send them to everyone in a group message, so they can vote, which they like the most?”

“Consider it done!” Marinette said while searching for her phone to send the pictures.

“I also have something new for the concert. I just finished a song yesterday, do you want to hear it, Pumpkin?” he asked as he reached for his guitar that rested next to them on the grass. The girl nodded affirmatively, as she was always excited to hear one of his own songs. She hit send rapidly and turned back towards the boy with anticipation. “Here it goes, Hot Stuff!” he winked at her, then directed his attention to his guitar and the song.

Marinette didn’t mind, this way he couldn’t see the spreading shameful blush in her face. She didn’t mind being called Sugarpie in front of the whole school or in live TV either, if she never got to be Hot Stuff ever again.

* * *

It was a force of nature that even this beautiful day had to come to an end. Namely the night. The Saturday night, their weekly patrol took place. For a few days now Marinette knew that this was going to be an extraordinary patrol. She made her decision, so she texted Chat about it, preventing her from chickening out in the last second. She hated herself for what she was about to do, but there was no other option. She was the Guardian after all, and the Guardian had to do what needed to be done.

The Miraculouses were the Guardian’s responsibility, so she had to know who hold them. Despite the danger it would draw to them, the Guardian had to know the identities of her heroes, to avoid another Miraculous being lost. To be able to intervene if necessary. To be in control. It was all part of her new job. You see, everything was fine, until Master Fu was there for them, to pull the strings, hand out the magic jewels and to know everything that can be known about this game they have been playing. But now Marinette had to take all his former responsibilities into herself, including knowing the Miraculous holders’ secret identities. It took her a month of consideration to finally make this decision, but the reveal seemed inevitable.

It was a busy month, full of new impulses and challenges. For starters, constant Akuma attacks, where every villain was fiercer than the previous and was trying to seize their Miraculous or reveal their identity even harder than before. It often was a close call. So close, that she had to implement extra elements into her safety routine. Next to that, she had to transform her lockable journal box into a safe for the Miracle box, to hide it somewhere safe. After that came the transformation of one of her room’s corner into a potion-brewing stand, where she could make the drinks that granted additional powers to their kwamis and installing a curtain to hide it from uninitiated eyes. Well, practically from everyone she knew. This was followed by gathering the ingredients needed for those potions, and the grievous work of trying to decipher everything in the Miraculous book that wasn’t translated and noted down by Master Fu. To sum it up, it was a lot of work, she didn’t exactly volunteer for.

She lived in a state of constant worry about forgetting something and making a fatal mistake. Her new role felt like a burden; new responsibilities she didn’t felt ready for and didn’t know how to handle properly. Just like when she got her Miraculous, only this time there was no one to share her experiences with. She has tried to draw power from that experience nevertheless - that she can make it, she already did it once - but she was at the beginning of the path and it was rocky.

It wasn’t a long time ago she had finally managed to convince Chat Noir, that keeping their identities secret is for the best. And with her new plan, here she was, breaking their deal that she has forced on him. She felt like a hypocrite. Maybe because she was. Doesn’t matter what Tikki said. Still, she was obliged to push through. Keeping their identities secret was to protect their own lives and the people who were close to them, but at this point it also meant endangering Paris and the safety of the Miraculouses. It all went down to keeping an eye on the greater good.

So here she was, waiting on a rooftop nervously for Chat Noir to show. The cool night air brushed her face as she paced in circles, thoughts a million miles away. She almost didn’t hear a baton’s knock on the roof, followed by familiar steps.

“Good evening, Chat!” she spoke, forcing her voice not to tremble, and facing the arriving hero.

“Good evening, My Lady!” he answered with a playful smile on his face. “So, you wanted to talk about something important before patrol?”

“Yes, that I do.” Ladybug has tried this already a hundred times in her head. This was going to be a piece of cake. “Look, Chaton. I know, I was the one opposing this, but things have changed, since Master Fu-… since I’ve became the Guardian. Now I’m the one responsible for the Miraculouses and I need to know who holds them. If anything were to happen to you, I need to be able to come to the rescue, it doesn't matter if you need me in or out of your suit. Your Miraculous can’t be lost, it’s too powerful to end up in the wrong hands. So, I-I need to-”

“Know my identity?” Chat interrupted, eyes shining bright. “It’s alright, My Lady, no need to make such a fuss about it. You know I was always ready for us to come clean. I trust you more than anyone.” After a moment of consideration, he added with a small, apologetic smile. “That hasn’t changed.”

That hadn’t changed since he stopped flirting with her. Since he spoke the words for the second time, about a month ago. “I have a girlfriend,” he said. “Now for real.” And he meant it. So, Ladybug should have been thrilled. She had a strange enough love life even without Chat Noir being head over heels for her. But with this, he has changed their unspoken status-quo and she didn’t know what to make of it. It wasn’t exhilarating like she imagined it would be. It was plainly odd.

Truthfully, if things would have been different, she could see herself falling for the hero. That was the cause of her confusion. He was charming in his own way and they have been practically best friends for years now. Too bad, she used to crush on someone else so hard she couldn’t even see anyone beside him, and when she started to consider other options, Luka showed up. Not like dating someone whose name she didn’t know could have worked out anyway. And now he was in a relationship with someone else.

Of course, she was happy for him, how could she not be? And she also had a boyfriend. She had to remind herself about that sometimes. But their dynamic has changed, and it bother her. Besides, he didn’t look profusely happy himself either. However, she seemed to notice similarities between their love lives, so maybe he just needed time to get over Ladybug, just like she needed time to get over Adri-… No, she was most definitely over him. She was so definitely over him, that she was dating Luka. Luka was awesome. She, however, was facing a staring Chat Noir.

“Sorry, I was just… Well, never mind. So, are you okay with this?”

“If this is what you want, then of course. If you think, knowing each other’s identities will help us protect Paris, then I’m all in.” He was just like before. Loyal, bold, just as oblivious to details.

“That’s the thing Chat,” said Ladybug while staring at her feet, her lips between her teeth. “It isn’t going to make things easier, only harder. However, as the Guardian, I can’t risk not knowing who you are. I had to be able to reach you even in your civilian form if something happened. For you, on the other hand… It would be even riskier now to give away my identity. The Guardian’s true form mustn’t be known. I hope, you understand.” she peered back to him from under her lashes. She wished she wouldn’t have. He stared at her with shock in his eyes, feelings of betrayal and disappointment written all over his face.

“I see.” Came the cold answer after a pause.

“It isn’t because I don’t trust you, it’s just that-”

“It’s more convenient this way. I understand. I am not as stupid as I might look.” He practically spit out the words and continued before Ladybug could protest. “Plagg, claws in!”

For a moment, they stood in a flash of green light, that was followed by the void, most people call silence. Ladybug was staring into an unsettlingly familiar pair of green eyes, her own widened in shock, unable to form a coherent thought.

The boy was the first to speak, his hurt voice echoing in her ears long after he retransformed. “The name’s Adrien Agreste. Everything else you can most definitely find on the internet yourself. I’d say it was a pleasure, but I’d hate to lie to the Guardian.” With that, he was gone.

Needless to say, patrol was cancelled.

* * *

Marinette wanted to go after him. But she didn’t. However, she didn’t want to go home. Which she did. Just didn’t know how.

All the way home, all she wanted to do was screaming, but all she did instead was crying. She did the opposite of this, still on the rooftop. What could she say, she liked a well-balanced emotional break-down.

As she finally arrived home she collapsed on her bed and buried her face into her pillows. Tikki patted her head sympathetically but there wasn’t much she could say to her right now. She waited, and after a while, Marinette’s sobs stilled and the girl was finally able to look up from her sheets.

“Well, that was something.” Marinette wiped her tears down with the back of her hand and sit up with her back to the wall.

“It wasn’t that horrible!” Tikki lied but noticing the falsity of her words she corrected. “I’m sure you can work this out! Maybe he’s mad now, but-”

“I have never seen him like this before, Tikki. He looked so hurt, practically furious. If I’m being honest, I can’t really blame him. But still, I didn’t think he would be this upset. What I asked wasn’t unreasonable, was it?” She didn’t bother waiting for the answer. She knew it anyway. Tikki encouraged her to make this move. Of course, she considered it sensible. “But out of all the people in Paris! How could have it been Adrien?”

Marinette felt dizzy. All of the sudden, she felt like she couldn't breathe as she was rushed by memories. Her vision went blurry as they overflew her system. She was witnessing her own memories with brand new eyes. There was Chat, standing at the other side of her hand, her finger pushing his nose away to maintain a decent proximity. Now with her imagination, she slowly peeled his mask off, and there he was, standing at the tip of her index finger. Adrien Agreste. This was followed by the memory of Chat insisting to share their identity. With a brush of her mind, it was gone, and her classmate was standing in his place. After this, the events of Oblivio crept into her mind in vivid pictures. She was standing on a rooftop and kissing Adrien Agreste dressed up as Chat Noir. All of a sudden, it all made sense. She must have figured it out during her amnestic period, just to forget it again when everything has been restored to normal.

When the Miraculous magic was shattered by her knowledge of the truth, Chat’s disguise seemed laughably fabricated. It was just like solving a math problem. Once you did it, you didn't quite understand what was so hard about it in the first place. Thinking everything through, even the proposition of Chat _not_ being Adrien Agreste was offensive.

For God's sake, it was clearly Adrien Agreste, with a black mask pinned to his face. With his silly - clever - puns, his smug - adorable - smile and his reckless - finally-free-from-the-stronghold-of-restrictions - personality. He was the same caring, warm-hearted, loyal, wonderful person.

She felt like laughing and crying at the same time but most of all, kicking herself in the butt. The memories that followed have only strengthened her desire to do so. There were countless times of Adrien flirting with her. Countless times he has jumped into harm's way to protect her. He has sacrificed himself over and over again for her. He has declared his love for her so many times she couldn't count. He organized her the world's most romantic picnic on a roof, and she turned him down because she was in love with… Well, him. He lied he had a girlfriend just to make her jealous. And after all these years of running with his head into the wall, he has finally given up on her and started dating someone else. For real. To make things even worse, as it turned out, Chat's girlfriend wasn't entirely a stranger herself. Chat Noir, well Adrien, was dating Kagami. One of Marinette's closest friends. What a delight.

Marinette shut her eyes very tightly, as if hoping against hope that she wakes up, and this impossible situation would vanish, so she never had to think about it ever again. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.

With her eyes shut, she listened to her heavy breathing and tried to steady it. She had to calm herself, to make sense of this mess.

A few minutes passed by in silence, when upon she opened her eyes again and wasn't about to faint. She considered this a success.

"So…" her voice was shaky and insecure, but she was determined to solve this situation even if it took everything she had in herself. "This would take some getting used to."

"I'm so sorry Marinette, I have never thought that it would turn out this way. I thought he'd understand the situation. As the Guardian, this was the wisest thing to do."

"Well, as the Guardian, probably it was. But I'm also his friend. Or at least I used to be. I'm not so sure anymore." Marinette rubbed her face to maintain concentration. Maybe to hold back tears, too.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. I have to admit, we messed up this time, but I know he'll forgive you. The Chat Noir I know could only hold a grudge against you for so long. He loves you." Tikki meant this as an encouragement. The time being it only made feel Marinette more ashamed.

"I don't think he does anymore, Tikki." Marinette whispered the words. "And let’s not forget, that he's also Adrien. He has been through so many nasty things, with his father. He has been hurt so many times. Do you think, after all this, his instinct would be to forgive me, and not to run screaming into the opposite direction?" Marinette snorted.

"Yes, I think that's precisely what he would do.” Tikki sent a small, all-knowing smile her way before going on. “And if you think Adrien wouldn't forgive you, you clearly don't know him as well as you think you do."

“Anyhow, I can’t really do much more than apologise, for now. I could visit him tomorrow and try to get things right. I need to let him know, that I trust him, and how I didn’t intend to hurt him.” Maybe the apology would be more convincing, if she also revealed herself, since that was the point things got out of hand, but she didn’t want to mention this to Tikki. She knew very well, how dangerous that would be for both of them and the Miraculouses as well. Besides, she didn’t want to admit, but she feared that revealing herself would ruin everything. Because things could get even worse than they were now. Now she bore all the information as well as the burden of finding out what to do to make things right. However, this also meant that she was in control, she was the one calling the shots. Revealing herself would deprive her of this position, but she didn’t feel ready for that. She didn’t trust herself to the point, where she could throw away the last ace in her sleeve, because it could have dire consequences. For example, Chat Noir never speaking to her again and abandoning being a superhero and her partner for good, Adrien hating her and transferring schools, which not only would be unbearable in itself, but surely would result in all of her classmates hating her for it as well. Deep down she knew that these were the not-so-likely worst-case scenarios, but she couldn’t find the strength in herself to even risk them coming to life. Even Chat giving her the cold shoulder for the rest of their partnership seemed more bearable than losing him altogether.

“Do you think, it’s wise to give a visit to Adrien tomorrow?” Tikki’s words have brought her back to their current reality.

“I need to talk to him, and it can’t wait until the next patrol. I’d say this is kind of an emergency.” Marinette frowned. “We have to talk as soon as possible. I don’t want to keep him waiting. He has waited long enough. I can’t believe, these two past years we could have been together...”

“About that, aren’t you forgetting something?” Tikki asked tentatively.

“I know he’s dating Kagami, so it’s gonna be a hell of a ride. I don’t want to ruin their relationship, but if he knew Ladybug felt the same way about him, wouldn’t have it been otherwise?” Marinette felt a lot of things. She felt puzzled about the possibilities, felt hopeful for what might happen and was disgusted by her own expectations. She wanted under no circumstances to be the reason her friends broke up but what was there left to do? Adrien was in love with Ladybug just a month ago. Could have his feelings changed so fast? If he only started to date Kagami in the first place because his partner kept rejecting him... Marinette shivered with the thought.

“Not that something Marinette.” It was again Tikki, that freed her from her spiralling thoughts. “You were supposed to go to the Kitty Section’s rehearsal. To Luka’s.”

“To Luka’s?” Marinette blinked a few times, before she went pale with the sudden, long overdue realization. ”Oh my God, Luka!” This was the point where she realized, she has utterly forgotten about the existence of her own boyfriend.

As it turned out, this _was_ a worst-case scenario, just not the one she was actively trying to avoid. This was the scenario, where she was so hyper-fixated on her reawakening feelings for her crush that she has completely forgotten about her very-much-existing boyfriend. This was her ultimate reminder, that despite him being mature and understanding and very much flawless, how much she wasn’t in love with said boyfriend. Also, her reminder that despite claiming otherwise, how much she wasn’t over said crush.

“I’m a bad person.” This wasn’t a question, or a proposition to consider. She stated facts she knew were true. There was no other explanation, how what just went down could happen.

“Don’t say that Marinette, you know it isn’t true.” Tikki protested. “You’re just-”

“Confused? Troubled? Insensitive and soulless? You can pick whichever you like, the outcome won’t change. I have forgotten about even the existence of my boyfriend while plotting how to ruin someone else’s relationship.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue but not untrue. “I’m a worse person than Chloe and deserve to die alone.” Maybe even worse than Lila. At this point, she wouldn’t dare to declare otherwise. To this thought she fell back onto her bed and grumbled into her pillows.

“You need to rest, Marinette!” Tikki decided. “Tomorrow will be a brand new day. You will figure something out, like you always do, and solve this. I know!” She planted a gentle peck on the back of her charge’s head before laying down to her place at the head of the bed.

“I’m not sure, I will be able to sleep, Tikki.” The girl mumbled to her pillow, her eyes already closed. She was practically exhausted from the emotional stress she experienced.

Tikki watched her as her shoulders dropped and her whole body relaxed. Drifting into sleep has never been so surprisingly fast for Marinette. With her last conscious thought, she remarked. “I’ll have to break up with him, won’t I?”

In this, they agreed.


	2. Pretty venom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get a glimpse at those functioning relationships  
> It's [pretty venom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKKWrfwMQJw)

Adrien, to say the least, didn’t sleep well. The picture of Ladybug standing in front of him, staring at her shoes and rambling about duty and responsibility, while making it clear that she didn’t intend to reveal her own identity, burnt into his retina. The only picture he could replace this was the heroine’s eyes widened in shock, after he dropped his disguise. This wasn’t any better, so he stuck to the first one. At least with that, he didn’t have to recollect the overwhelming feelings of humiliation and worthlessness. Betrayal and hurt were enough as they were, thank you very much.

He had tried to wrap his head around his Lady’s actions all night, until he was overwhelmed by tiredness and exasperation and fell into a slumber. He woke to the morning sunlight filling his room, his Lady’s mocking laughter still echoing in his ears from his dreams.

He laid still on his bed, trying to brush off the bitter feeling his dream left in his mouth and concentrate on yesterday’s real events. He had revealed his identity to Ladybug, there was no doubt about that. She not only didn’t reciprocate this gesture but looked as if she questioned their whole partnership based on his identity. And it really hurt. To know, Ladybug was disappointed in who he turned out to be, to know, things could never ever go back to the way they used to be because she didn’t trust him. Not anymore. She claimed it otherwise but how could have it been true if she still refused to unmask herself.

He knew, being the Guardian meant more responsibilities than being only a superhero, but there was no other explanation for why she kept her distance but considering him undependable. It’s true, he has been akumatized before, while Ladybug kept up her spotless spree, but that didn’t make him untrustworthy, did it? He knew he would rather sacrifice his own Miraculous - or life for the matter - than letting Ladybug down. As he thought about it, this probably gave way to some concern, but he didn’t want to dwell on such mundane matters. This was his time to be angry, to feel the weight of her betrayal.

He used to feel hopeful about revealing their identities. He clung onto the tiny chance, that maybe his civilian identity would be good enough for her. Maybe the famous model, Adrien Agreste could win Ladybug’s heart, and make her forget about the boy she was so desperately in love with. Not because he considered Adrien a better part of him than Chat, arsy-versy, and certainly not because he thought that Ladybug was so shallow to drop everything for fame, money and a pretty face, but let’s be honest. He didn’t really have many options left to fuel his desperate hopes of the two of them ever becoming an item. She had pronounced on multiple occasions that she wasn’t interested in Chat in any way. The second last drop in the imaginary glass seemed to be her visible delight at the faked news of his girlfriend. The last one was Kagami’s behaviour, her genuine interest in him and in being in a relationship with him. So, he buried every unrequired romantic feeling he had towards her partner and went for it. At first, he felt insecure and not entirely sincere about his motivations, but they were together for a month now, and it was working. Kagami was determined, funny and if you let her close enough, she really cared. They persuaded even their parents, that this relationship of theirs was a good thing, that they won’t fall behind on schoolwork or their extracurricular activities. After consideration, Adrien’s father and Kagami’s mother agreed, that their children could be dating worse people than each other, so they gave their blessings. For now, they emphasized.

So, things were going great. And these were the reasons why he shouldn’t have been feeling so broken-hearted by the revelation going down the way it did. After all, his relationship with Ladybug was exclusively professional, with Kagami and the mystery boy she was dating in the picture. By the look of it, she has finally managed to wrap the love of her life around her fingers and they got together about the same time he did with Kagami, so it was a win-win situation. For the most part. At least, there was nothing stopping them from levelling down their relationship to sheer professionalism instead of the partnership they had that resembled the connection of best friends. And if yesterday’s event were anything to go by, Ladybug herself didn’t forget about this, as she crushed all of his fantasies about their identity reveal.

The imaginary scenarios in Adrien’s head were versatile. Revelation caused by accident, by him losing his mind in the heat of the moment and going for it, by Ladybug realizing how irrevocably in love she was with him, or by talking things through as adults and coming to the conclusion that they both trusted each other with their lives so identities weren’t that big of a deal. These fantasies had one thing in common. The reveal was always mutual. So quite literally, for the two years, he was daydreaming about this moment, the scenario that finally came to life never occurred to him. You can’t blame this on his poor imagination, he really did his best while 'preparing'.

“Are you going to lay in bed all day and feel sorry for yourself or are you going to forget about that fussy bug finally and dress up before your girlfriend arrives?” This was Plagg saying Good morning! to him.

“She’s not fussy, she’s just-” he bit his lips. He was hurt and angry with her. He didn’t have to come to her rescue, he didn’t owe her anything. He scrambled to his feet and rubbed his eyes. They were hurting from the little sleep he got. He checked the time, and as it looked, Plagg was right. It was almost nine, Kagami would be here in minutes. Hastily, he opened the window to let some fresh air into the room and hurried to comb his hair while brushing his teeth. After that, he changed into something other than his pyjama. His look got stuck on the T-shirt he just took off, a black one that portrayed Ladybug and Chat Noir smiling, running to battle side by side, before he threw it into the laundry basket angrily. Just as he tossed some cheese to Plagg, he could hear the distant sound of a ringing bell. He didn’t have to check his phone to know, it was 9:00 sharp. His girlfriend was precise like a swiss watch. Plagg quickly hid in his pocket as he was already on his way to the door.

By the time he arrived down the stairs, Nathalie has already let Kagami in, asking about her mother’s health as it was appropriate. He went ahead and greeted her with a quick kiss, slightly blushing to it. Kagami smiled up at him and took his hand.

“It’s good to see you!” she said while raising a questioning eyebrow at Nathalie, who still stood beside them, seemingly doing nothing. The woman understood it, bowed her head and retreated to Gabriel's office.

“Breakfast is served!” She turned back to them, before entering the office.

“Shall we?” Adrien asked playfully before pulling his girlfriend in the direction of the dining hall. He had to admit, “his girlfriend” had a nice ring to it.

They sat down to the places that were already laid, opposite to each other at the longer side of the table. The first time she came over for breakfast he had to fight Natalie not to make them sit on the smaller sides, like they did with his father, kilometers away. Since then, this was their sitting arrangement when she visited for their weekly Sunday morning breakfasts. It was a really nice addition to his weekly routine, one that he actually looked forward.

“How was your week? Was the gala yesterday night any fun?” he asked as they dug into their omelettes. It was served with vegetables to make it even more healthy. Him and the adults at this household had entirely different opinions on what counted as a sufficient Sunday morning breakfast but he didn’t catch up on things like this anymore.

“It was alright. Mother made some great connections, that will help to distribute the new fencing gears as the production is over. It would have been better if you were there although.” She looked at her plate while speaking. Adrien felt a spike of guilt breaking up inside him. He should have been there with her, not fooling around with another girl in the Parisian night. Not like Ladybug was a simple girl of any sorts or they would have actually been fooling around but he regretted choosing patrol instead of spending time with his girlfriend. Especially, considering the outcome.

They didn’t get to spent as much time together with Kagami as they would liked to, due to their heavy schedule; and for some nights Adrien had to come up with extra excuses not to abandon his duties as a superhero altogether. They met every week twice, during fencing lessons, and spent some time together after that but apart from that their interactions were mostly limited to texting and weekend rendezvouses. Sometimes, if they felt venturous, they even spent the lunch break together, in a little restaurant about halfway between their schools.

“Sorry, I had to reject, but we have that big project next week-” He didn’t like lying to Kagami but he couldn’t very well say he was busy watching over Paris.

“It’s fine Adrien,” the girl smiled at him, pushing away her empty plate. “We aren’t bound together.”

They have finished breakfast and went to the boy’s room to collect his stuff before heading to today’s objective, the zoo.

Adrien started to pack his bag but driven by a sudden idea he abandoned this activity and went to the girl standing by the couch. She was reading the summary of a video game that was left on the coffee table. He sneaked up at her and hugged her by her waist from behind. “You know, I have just figured out how to make it up to you,” he said with a beautiful smile on his face. Kagami got startled by his sudden appearance but didn’t try to break the contact. She smiled back up at him.

“There is nothing to make up for, Adrien.”

“Fine, be as you wish!” He planted a kiss onto her cheek. “But there’s going to be a concert next Saturday. We could go there, even if there is something to make up for, even if isn’t.”

“What kind of concert?” Kagami asked as she turned to face her boyfriend. She put her hands on his shoulders to pull him closer.

“The Kitty Section and another band are going to play in the park. You know, it’s the band my classmates have formed, and they’re pretty good. My whole class will be there, we could hang out with them if you want to,” Adrien answered, while slowly pulling Kagami closer to the couch.

He didn’t offer this because he didn't want to spend time alone with his girl. The case was, Kagami didn’t have much luck making friends in her private school, as everyone was already in a clique they weren’t willing to move from. However, during the last semester, she became quite close to Marinette, and she seemed to like his other classmates too. They definitely were less snobbish than hers. So, hanging out in a large group meant she could make new friends, for which he was willing to sacrifice some alone time with her.

“That sounds great, actually. Even if I don’t get to have you all to myself all night.” With that, she pushed him onto the couch and sit on his lap. “I could even escort you home after the concert. I assume, it will end pretty late,” she said, while two of her fingers trekked up his face, into his hair.

“That’s very chivalrous of you Dear, but wouldn’t it be more proper the other way around?” Adrien laughed. His stomach turned excitedly by how close her face was to his. She smelled like orange and anise. It was dizzying.

“Oh, I didn't said I would be going home after that,” she answered with a mischievous grin, before pressing her lips to his.

Her mouth was soft, and combined with the implications of her former words the moment was intoxicating. Even if he were facing the windows, he wouldn’t have noticed the polka-dotted red shadow sweeping past.

* * *

Marinette was late for the rehearsal. Not like it would have mattered. She wasn’t on the band she was just their unofficial designer and the guitarist’s date. For at least the eight more minutes until she arrived at the boat the others were playing on.

Of course, in case she was willing to follow through with the solution that has slipped her lips last night while drifting unconsciously to sleep. However, she wasn’t sure about this. She didn't want to do something stupid in the moment’s heat, so staying put and waiting a few more days before taking action was an option she seriously considered. Anyway, what harm could it do? Her thoughts have been occupied with this topic all morning. She considered and reconsidered while explaining to Tikki furiously, with her toothbrush in her mouth. The kwami wasn’t sure she would have made more sense without the piece of plastic in her mouth.

Nevertheless, this wasn’t the reason she was late. You could blame it on her personality and her tendency to always step out the door five minutes after it was too late, but that wasn’t the reason either. Simply, she wanted to speak with Chat before attending the rehearsal. She had to apologize and explain, probably beg for his forgiveness if it looked necessary. Though she didn't get the chance to do any of those things. Because when she arrived to his house, his room was empty. She considered slipping through the open window but didn’t want to make a bad impression at her first visit. She intended to wait for his return on the neighbouring rooftop and ask for permission to enter. What she didn't take into account was him returning with someone else. Since it was out of the question for Ladybug to show up in Adrien’s bedroom while he was with his girlfriend, she lay low on the roof and decided to wait. However, her foolish hopes about the couple only meeting up for a minute before going their separate ways were crushed as rapidly as Adrien hugged Kagami from behind. This was the point she decided she had to skedaddle, only it was too late to back off without seriously risking that the boy would notice her. So, she sat tight and waited anxiously for her opportunity to vanish, rescheduling their talk for a more appropriate time. Preferably much later.

This was one of those situations where if you didn't want to pay attention to something, your focus drifted back to it inevitably. She made herself not to look their way, but she couldn't close her ears. They were speaking about showing up to her boyfriend’s concert. _Cool. It’d be great to hang out with them as friends._ After that Kagami planned to escort home Adrien. _Strange but long live equality._ After that she didn't plan to leave. _Totally awesome._

She couldn’t stand it any longer and peered up. When she saw they were busy doing what lovers do, she took her chance and scampered. She didn’t stop until she was streets away. Normally, this much activity did nothing to Ladybug’s stamina, now she still felt like she couldn’t catch her breath. She waited for her heart to stop racing like it did and tried to calm her thoughts.

This shouldn’t have happened. None of it. She shouldn’t have spied on them, not even accidentally, but once she did, she shouldn’t have been affected like this. They were dating, so it was only natural that they were progressing with their relationship, even though she considered it a little fast. This was the other thing. She had absolutely no business to consider anything about this relationship. It wasn’t hers to judge, to think about, even to witness. Still, she did. And she felt awful about it. Of course, not as awful as about the fact that if yesterday’s reveal took place a month ago, she could have been the one standing there. To be hugged by Adrien, to be asked out on a date, to accompany him home and possibly to stay the night. She could have had Adrien _and_ Chat. Her long-time crush and her wonderful partner, in a compact package. Instead, she had to calculate with the possibility of losing them both forever. She felt so envious Nick Jonas’ [Jealous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw04QD1LaB0) was playing in her head.

While ruminating, she had forced herself to get going. A freaked-out Ladybug standing on the streets for no reason was an image that attracted the public’s eye, after all. She moved towards the riverside, as she was already late. According to her calculations, it was approximately five more minutes until she made it there. She gave herself that much time to compose herself and make her decision. Truthfully, it was already made.

She wasn’t blind to her reactions yesterday night nor today morning. She knew that only three minutes ago she wanted to play it safe and wait it out, but she also knew what her reactions and feelings meant. And judging by their intensity, they weren’t going to fade away magically so she could continue her life like nothing happened.

Getting together with Luka was partly escapism in its initial form, but after the recent events, she couldn't keep denying how much that part was. She liked Luka very much, as a friend, and that was exactly the reason why she had to end this as soon as she could. Messing up her own life was one thing but doing the same with Luka’s was entirely another.  
She didn’t plan to do this because she was holding onto false hope that after everything, she could get together with Adrien - which she did, don’t get her wrong, but that wasn’t her motivation for settling things with Luka. She wanted to break up because this was the right thing to do. She couldn’t stay in a relationship while having feelings for someone else and pretend that everything was fine. Acting like she was still fully committed would have been a lie; pure deception, and she respected Luka so much more than that.

When she was already near her destination she searched for a safe place to detransform. Tikki appeared in the air as soon as her disguise was dropped. Marinette searched her purse for a cookie while filling her in on her progress.

“I will do it. I’m going to break up with Luka,” she sighed. “It’s just not right to lie to him that this could last.”

“If you feel sure about this then go ahead, you know I support you no matter what,” the kwami said with a serious face. “But earlier you seemed more hesitant about jumping in at the deep end.”

“Well, I’m not anymore. Let’s do this, Tikki!” She braced herself for what’s about to come while heading towards the familiar ship.

She felt uneasy and very anxious but was determined. Yes, there was a high possibility of Luka never wanting to speak to her ever again, and later Chat rejecting her in favour of Kagami. It was also likely that after all of this she was going to die alone, with only her eleven cats keeping her company in her lonely days, but she sure as hell wouldn’t take someone else down with her on this miserable journey paved with unrequited love and eternal infelicity.

“Hey, Marinette!” Rose yelled to the mic when she set foot on the board, before continuing the chorus of the song they were playing. Everyone seemed happy to see her, but they kept playing, nevertheless.

When their eyes met, Luka sent a welcoming, friendly smile her way before she looked away. Her face already felt hot, despite the fact that she only arrived, and no one had any idea what she was preparing to do. She waved hello just generally, to no one in particular and sat on one of the three chairs that were standing on the auditorium.

She hoped that she would get her chance to talk to Luka privately after the first song, but she wasn’t as lucky as she should have been, considering the fact that she was literally the heroine of luck. When the song ended, an intense conversation took place about the sufficient modifications, that ended with playing the song over again. And again.

Whatever anxious and tense Marinette has been initially, she calmed down a little due to the waiting and the pleasant music. She decided that she could talk to Luka during the break and attempted to spend the time by then doodling in her sketchbook. As it turned out, it wasn’t such a good idea.

After an hour of playing, the band decided to take a break, but soon Marinette stood in the circle of her friends, who eagerly wanted to know every possible detail behind their new masks and the process of creating them. Most of them even had propositions about the design, so Marinette had to sit and listen to them, while marking the requests. She was about to break up with the guitarist, not about to abandon her friends in times of need, on a project she has already agreed to do.

When everyone got to speak with her and refresh a bit, they went back to the stage to continue the practice. She searched for Luka’s eyes to let him know they needed to speak, but when she found them, he only stepped beside her to plant a kiss on her head, before grabbing his guitar.

While sitting through the second part of the rehearsal she almost felt like the universe didn’t want to let her do the right thing. The problem was, she trusted the universe with these kinds of things. During her time as Ladybug, she learned that listening to her instincts was favourable, moreover often these instincts offered the only way to solve a disagreement. However, this wasn’t a job for Ladybug, Marinette reminded herself. In this situation she had to play herself and make that damn right decision.

Only, for the next hour and a half, she was thrown between her thoughts and feelings about the task ahead and by the end of it, she felt a little unsure, to say the least. Still, she held onto her initial plan when the others have started to pack their things.

Finally, Luka was heading her way, after saying goodbye to the departing Rose and Ivan. It seemed like the right time.

“How did you like the new song?” he asked as he got to her, pressing a kiss to her head again.

“It was nice,” she lied. She didn’t hear it at all. “Luka, there’s something I should tell you,” she continued, playing mindlessly with the ring in her necklace. Her stomach tied itself into a knot immediately as she opened her mouth.

“Really? What is it?” He smiled down at her so warmly. And she was going to wound his heart.

“I-It’s ab-about...” She hated that her stutter chose this exact moment to renew. Like it wouldn’t have been hard enough without it. “I-I ne-need you to kno-know...” She tried to get herself together and say a fluent sentence but it was just as hard as speaking to Adrien for the first few months. She despised those times.

“Marinette, it’s okay.” Luka was smiling. Why was he smiling when she prepared to break his heart? “Whatever it is, you don’t need to tell me right away. I can wait until you are ready. I can wait for you, because, you know, I love you.” He smiled sheepishly to her, blushing to the last few words.

If Marinette had been able to form coherent thoughts she would have had to correct herself. She wouldn’t be breaking his heart. She would be shattering it to tiny pieces and watch it burn. How was she supposed to do the right thing after this confession?!

However, she was not able to do that. Her mouth parted in surprise. She stared at the warm teal eyes and blinked a few. She was trying to say something, but she couldn’t. Her mind was screaming _No, no, no, no!_ but those weren’t noises one would call a coherent sentence. It was one of those famous, “Marinette.exe stopped working” moments. There was a chance that she had forgotten to breathe.

“Luka, we need to get going! Dad is going to be pissed if we will be late again from dinner at that stupid restaurant,” Juleka interrupted.

“On my way!” the boy exclaimed before turning back to Marinette. “I need to go, but I’m going to text you as soon as I can, Love! No rush, just take your time!” He bent down and kissed her swiftly. Marinette let him.

In a minute the siblings were on their way to catch a cab, leaving Marinette alone on the board.

Things were so not going according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are highly appreciated as always! :)


	3. Favourite place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little slice of life and a much-needed conversation  
> To be someone's [favourite place](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dr27fyqc0o)

Mondays weren’t disliked by Marinette, but on this particular morning she still wished she could stay in bed and skip school. Let someone else deal with facing Adrien and playing it cool while he didn’t have the faintest idea about something being off between the two of them. Let someone else answer to Luka’s texts he kept sending like nothing would be wrong, since as far as he was concerned nothing was. Let someone else hide this mess, her life became on this short weekend from Alya. Ladybug would be the perfect candidate for the job. Unfortunately, she was out of office and wouldn’t be back for 1-5 business days, depending on the frequency of Akuma attacks. So, Marinette had to solve her own problems, like any other human being.

She got up eventually and got ready for school equipped with the speed of a sloth-teamed superhero. Before heading out the door she made a distinct groan, with which she planned to leave home her stressed feelings and arrive at school in a more upbeat mood. To her great surprise, it helped a little.

By the time she had arrived to school grounds the bell has already gone off, meaning she was late. Nothing new here. She headed to their classroom in the empty halls. Standing in the door she collected herself and took a big breath, before entering.

When she stepped inside the classroom Miss Bustier sent a disapproving look her way but didn’t say anything. After the first few weeks of the school year, starting every day with reminding her how late she was seemed unnecessary. Marinette hurried to take her place but to accomplish this she had to pass Adrien. As she put her leg on the first stair-step of the staircase leading to the end of the classroom, she foolishly looked at him and to her surprise, he was looking back.

Only, it wasn’t Adrien. It was Chat Noir. Then it was Adrien again. The picture flickered before her, like her brain would be unable to decide, which one to show to her. She blinked a few and shook her head to clear it, but by this time she was sitting on the stairs. She didn’t even remember tripping and falling.

“Are you okay, Marinette?” Adrien asked, lending his hand, to help her if she needed it. The whole class went silent and watched her alarmed.

“Y-Yes, I’m fi-fine,” she stuttered out, feeling a blush creeping up her face. She collected her bag and sit down quickly, while Miss Bustier continued the class.

“Are you alright, girl?” Alya whispered with a worried expression. “What even was that?”

“Just a slip. I’m surprised you didn’t get used to it already,” Marinette joked, while truthfully, she also very much would like to know the answer to that question. Her brain must have overcharged by seeing Adrien in close-up and decided to settle this misunderstanding of who was really sitting before her once and for all.

“A slip, indeed. I thought you stopped this stuttering thing,” said Alya as she returned her attention to the class.

Marinette thought it, too. She got unused to making a blushing fool out of herself and wasn’t pleased by the familiar experience. She could blame it on her unusual perception, but maybe her swiftly resurfaced feelings towards Adrien had more to do with it. However, she couldn’t allow herself to slide back into her previous patterns. It didn't matter, that he had Adrien’s face, and in fact, was Adrien, because he was also Chat Noir. Her most trusted, easy-going, tender partner. And in front of him, it has never even crossed her mind to behave like this or be embarrassed, in or out of the costume. Returning to fangirl mode just won’t do, she decided. For one, it was counterproductive. Second, Chat would never let her live it down after she revealed her identity to him.

With this determination in mind, she tried her best to ignore her blonde partner sitting so close to her. She had to battle her urge to apologize in the next moment she got to speak with him, because Marinette couldn’t do that for Ladybug. Even if waiting for tomorrow night for the patrol seemed ridiculous, knowing they were sitting right next to each other. Only after this was all settled, could she finally direct her attention to listen to Miss Bustier.

* * *

The cafeteria was crowded, given it was lunch break, but Marinette and Alya had successfully found an empty table they claimed to themselves. They were having their lunches while chatting about the weekend. Or mostly Alya was explaining how exciting her Friday night was when she stalked after Ladybug and Chat Noir fighting the day’s supervillain, and Marinette tried to paint as a blank picture of her last days as possible. Sitting in the park, attending the rehearsal, watching TV, nothing too thrilling.

The colloquy was disturbed by Nino taking a seat next to his girlfriend, followed by Adrien doing the same with Marinette.

“So, what’s the gossip all about, girls?” Nino asked, unpacking his sandwich.

“I was filling in Marinette on the events of the last Akuma attack, because as it seems she lives under a rock and is unwilling to look up some info about the stories lurking in the dark herself,” Alya declared. _Oh boy, if she only knew._ "But you have already heard this story, so I wouldn't bore you with it. What about you, how was your weekend?" she asked, raising a questioning eyebrow mostly in Adrien's direction. They spent Sunday together with Nino, there was not much to talk about that.

"Well, it was kind of nice. We went to the zoo with Kagami," the boy started. "She really liked the panthers. I mean, it isn't that surprising, what is there not to love about big black kittens?” He smiled innocently.

Marinette couldn’t imagine how did the boy get away with being Chat Noir so far. Also, how could she have been so blind, not to notice? He was punning about it at the very first chance he got. Worst of all, he thought he was being subtle about it. Marinette didn’t even notice that she snorted until everyone at the table was staring at her.

“You’re right, they’re all fun and games until they turn into a T-rex and try to swallow someone in whole.” She sipped her drink with a straw as innocently as Adrien proposed the question. “That particular Akuma was pretty memorable if I do say so myself. I just wish all of my dates would be that successful.” She smiled brightly at her friends sitting across the table and was really proud of herself, proud that her previous pep-talk has worked. A little Ladybug-confidence never hurt anyone.

"Uh-oh, relationship problems with Prince Charming?" Nino bantered, squeezing Alya's hand under the table.

"Relationship _cat_ astrophes," she nodded affirmatively while giggling.

She could be subtle, too. Telling her friends about her most urgent problems and deepest secrets straightforward and still leaving them in the dark, making them believe it was all a joke. That was the definition of subtle. Games were only fun if multiple people participated, and this game was played by the two of them. Only Adrien didn't realize it yet.

"Then I guess we won't see you at the concert on Saturday. What a shame, we could have had such a good time!" Nino teased further.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll be there," Marinette smiled at them, finishing her lunch.

“It's a good thing you mention that concert. Would you mind if I brought Kagami along?” Adrien asked, seemingly oblivious to any other part of the conversation.

“Not at all! I still want to do an interview with her for the Ladyblog but her schedule is insufferable. This way we can do it and it's going to be an all-Miraculous holders party! Except for Ladybug and Chat Noir, of course," Alya enthused immediately.

"You mean all-ex-Miraculous holders party," Nino corrected, killing Alya's heightening mood with his comment.

For more than a month now, Ladybug and Chat Noir's fellow superheroes’ identity wasn't a secret anymore. Hawkmoth has made them reveal themselves successfully, meaning that they could never get back their Miraculouses, for safety reasons. This was the cause of why Alya has been affected doubly by the events. On the one hand, she was proud to announce she has been Rena Rouge all along, helping the hero's team out of grave danger multiple times, and she also got to interview every other ex-Miraculous holder about their experiences for her blog. On the other hand, she could never fight alongside her heroes ever again. By default, she considered this a bummer. So did Marinette.

"Miraculouses or not, it's going to be great to hang out with Kagami," Marinette offered, trying to save the situation.

"But will her mom let her hang out with us? I thought she was super strict. Doesn't Kagami have to be home by nine or something?" Nino asked the logical questions. Of course, Marinette already knew why this shouldn't be a problem.

"Oh, it's fine. She can stay out later if I'm with her. Besides, we will be at my place by eleven, so Nathalie can contact her mother that she's fine," Adrien said oh-so-casually.

"What do you mean at your place?" Alya furrowed her brows questioningly.

Marinette "just remembered" that her chemistry homework for the upcoming lesson wasn't perfect so she took out her notebook to rewrite a few digits, looking very occupied.

"She's sleeping over!" Adrien announced proudly.

"Oh, smashin' bro!" Nino lifted his fist to the air to bump it with Adrien's.

"Well, congratulations. But just so you know. Most girls like better if these kinds of matters are handled a bit more tactfully," Alya said matter-of-factly.

Adrien's face looked puzzled. It was clear, he had no idea why everyone acted so strangely about this sleepover. Until he got it. At that moment he flushed red to his roots, seemingly forgetting to breathe for a solid minute.

"I-I didn't mean… W-We’re not going to..." he stuttered, that piqued Marinette's interest. "It isn't that kind of sleepover!"

Now it was the couple's turn to look uncomprehending.

"What do you mean?" Nino asked.

"It's just a regular sleepover. She stays in the guestroom and everything." If it was possible, he flushed even more at the implication, it could have been any other way.

Marinette let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She felt relieved that she misunderstood the situation and there is going to be no funny business, as far as Adrien was concerned. Not like she had any right to understand anything about this relationship in the first place, but we have already established how bad of a friend she has been to Kagami in the past few days.

“Well, you looked so excited about it, we just assumed...” Alya didn’t finish the sentence. She seemed to feel a little flustered herself.

“Of course, I am! I have never been on a sleepover before,” Adrien answered sheepishly, trying to regain his natural colour.

Well, that was unexpected. The other three have had their fair share of sleepovers during their years, so they considered it nothing special anymore. However, they could recall the first ones, crystal clearly. At the time they were almost as exhilarating as Christmas. The thought that Adrien never got to experience as ordinary things as this made Marinette feel even worse about her initial conceptions.

“Then it’s great news. I’m happy for you, Adrien!” She told the truth with a smile. She was truly happy that the boy would have the chance to participate in such normal things. Probably Kagami's sleepover count was also very low. They deserved this experience, and as their friend, she had to support them. “And Kagami is naturally welcomed at the concert. Tell her not to forget her best moves at home, she won’t be standing still until I have a say in that,” she added while putting away her notebook.

“Thanks, Marinette!” Adrien smiled back gratefully.

As they gathered their stuff and headed back to class a few words have been changed but nothing that would have taken Marinette’s mind off the upcoming concert. She couldn’t seem to decide whether to initiate her Talk with Luka before or after the event.

* * *

Chat was late for their Tuesday patrol. Five minutes ago he was laying on his bed and contemplating the idea of not showing up. But of course, that was ridiculous. Not only because they needed to talk if they wanted to work as a team ever again, but also because Ladybug could easily visit him if he stayed away. That was the whole point of the reveal.

So he was on his way to their usual meeting spot, jumping from roof to roof with the help of his baton. He could easily spot Ladybug, standing on the rooftop, looking eagerly his way. He didn’t meet her eyes until he landed and folded up his baton. His expression was indifferent, hiding his spiralling feelings as he went up to her and stopped in about three meters distance.

“Good evening!” That was it. No Bugaboo, no My Lady, not even a Ladybug.

“I need to tell you something,” she practically blurted out, looking determined. “I need to tell you how utterly sorry I am for what I’ve made you do. For how I’ve made you feel. I could go into a detailed explanation about why it seemed like a sensible idea - from the Guardian’s point of view it still seems like it - but it doesn’t really matter, because I shouldn’t have been thinking about this as only the Guardian. I should have been thinking about this as your partner, but then I wouldn’t have been able to do what I thought was expected from me.” She took a deep breath but continued on almost immediately. “So, I need you to know, that I understand if you are angry with me, or if you feel like I have betrayed you, or if you don’t want to be my friend ever again. And I accept that. But I also need you to know, that I have never intended to hurt you. I need you to know, that I have never trusted anyone in my life the way I trust you. I need you to know, that everything I did was to protect. I did it to protect Paris and the Miraculouses. However, I shouldn’t have let these things distract me from protecting my partner first. I truly am sorry, Chat.” She was holding his gaze while speaking, letting him know with her eyes how sincere her apology really was.

He felt the ice, he so carefully fabricated in the last few days, melt on his heart. How could he keep being angry with her, how could he stop being friends with her? Despite the initial look of it, she still trusted him. _In a way, she has never trusted anyone._ She wasn’t perfect, but that was what made her human. She owned up to her mistake and tried to make it right. Besides, she only did what seemed right in the first place. It was never about not trusting him, it was about manning up to be that goddamn Guardian. What was there more to ask for?

His feelings of anger and worthlessness vaporized with her words. All there was left was relief, forgiveness and questions.

“Apology accepted,” he announced, mustering a neutral expression, stepping a bit closer to Ladybug. “Just promise me to never do it again.” He said half-jokingly.

“I don’t see how could I make you reveal yourself again,” Ladybug answered in the same manner, feeling a little guilty, before getting all serious again. “I promise. And I’m really sorry,” she added.

“But I’m guessing this doesn’t change the fact, your identity remains unknown?” he raised the question tentatively, suspecting the answer.

“No, it doesn’t. For now, at least. I hope you understand.” Her bluebell eyes looked very sad. “But I’ll try to figure something out. Until then, I have something for you. Of course, if you don’t mind.” She opened her palm she was holding clenched by her side until this moment. She offered him a crumpled piece of paper.

He took it, curious about what was this all about. He stared at the writing in capital letters in surprise. It read a name, that probably belonged to an app and a username: LADY.BUG.

“I was thinking-” she started, her eyes searching his face for reassurance that this was okay. “-and it looked really irresponsible, that you can’t reach me if you need to. So, I figured, texting could work. This app doesn’t require a phone number, so Tikki and I have agreed that it’s anonymous enough for even the Guardian. Of course, if you’re comfortable with this,” she said sheepishly. “I wouldn’t want your girlfriend to get the wrong idea, so it’s fine if you don’t want to-”

While she spoke, a smile has quickly worked its way up on his face. She was pushing her boundaries as far as she could to make up for the unanswered reveal. He wanted nothing more but to hug his partner. So he did. She made a small, surprised noise to the swift embrace but returned it without hesitation. They were standing on the rooftop in the light of the setting sun, hugging each other.

“If I knew introducing you to that Agreste kid would get me your number My Lady, I’m _paw_ sitive I would have done it sooner,” he murmured teasingly as he let her go.

“Oh, he didn’t really need an introduction,” she mentioned casually, as she sat down on the edge of the building, dangling her legs.

“Any chance, you’re a fan of him?” he laughed at his own ridiculous assumption while taking his place next to her.

“Let’s just say, I didn’t have to look him up,” his Lady answered with a mysterious grin.

“Is that so? If you would like to, I can get you an autograph.” He giggled at his own joke, before getting all serious again and proposing one of the questions that have been bugging him for days. “Was that why you were so taken aback when finding out I was him?”

“Mostly. I didn’t expect to know the person behind the mask. It surprised me, that’s all,” she admitted, playing with a loose curl of her hair.

“So you’re saying we know each other?” he snorted. Of course, he got what she meant. A lot of people “know” him. It was a side effect of having your face postered all over Paris.

He didn't propose his next question. The one that was coming logically from her previous statement. It lingered in the silent air between them.

“It wasn’t a bad surprise,” she smiled up to him brightly, answering his unspoken worry. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t have liked you all the same if you turn out to be someone with a lesser brand name, but I’m glad it’s you.”

Adrien’s heart skipped a beat, for certainly unrelated reasons. “Oh, Bugaboo, and now you’re saying you like me? Wait until my girlfriend hears about this.” He knocked them back teasingly into their reality. He wasn’t allowed to forget what this was. Two friends making up and finally having a much-needed straightforward conversation. Nothing more. And it was enough. It had to be.

“You know, Chat. Since Saturday I’ve been thinking. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without you. I don’t think I could handle being Ladybug on my own,” she said, laying her head delicately on his shoulder.

He felt the same way. Being a hero wasn’t a job anyone could excel at alone for long. Being a team was what made them stronger than Hawkmoth. Balancing out each other’s weaknesses and mistakes, supporting the other when they needed it the most. This is what being a team meant. It meant, the two of them against the word. As always.

This is what they couldn’t afford to lose sight of ever again.

* * *

When Marinette arrived home she flopped down on her bed giggling. Maybe the world wasn’t about to end tonight.

“It went really well, I’m proud of you Marinette!” Tikki cheered, munching on a cookie.

“I’m so glad!” the girl exclaimed. She was glad her apology was enough. She was glad that she was enough to be Chat’s friend, despite him being aware of how flawed she actually could be. This was better than him shoving her with undeserved compliments and praises. This was real. This was meaningful.

Their conversation was disturbed by a distinct beep of Marinette’s phone. She picked it up from beside her bed with a smile lurking in the corner of her mouth and stared at the display. She had one new message from Pawsome-Hero. It read:

[It was a pleasure, My Lady!]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are highly appreciated as always! :)  
> Also, things speed up in the next chapter, can't wait for you to see it!


	4. Melancholy kaleidoscope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the concert, aka [melancholy kaleidoscope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-zOxk5FtwI) at it's finest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's and Alya's party outfits were based on the amazing artwork of [fishooman](https://fishhooman.tumblr.com)

The rest of the week flew away without much action. Of course, there was an Akuma attack on Wednesday but nothing the dynamic duo couldn’t handle.

Marinette worked on the new masks for Kitty Section and after pulling an all-nighter Thursday night she was happy to give them to Juleka and Rose the next day in school. However, the girl’s personal objective for the week was to meet up with Luka before Saturday, not to postpone the inevitable any longer. She wasn’t much luckier with this mission than in the previous weekend. The boy’s week was hectic with rehearsals and assignments, so they couldn’t go on a date as Marinette planned. Their conversations were limited to texting, but that was not the platform to conduct a break-up. This resulted in the awkward messages they exchanged all week, with Marinette not wanting to be rude and not wanting to be deceptively nice either. Luka didn’t seem to notice or he just had the decency not to bring it up via text.

But her boyfriend wasn’t the only one blowing up her phone with messages. Okay, technically you couldn’t call it a blow-up. She was exchanging maximum ten messages with Chat. Per half an hour. Strictly outside school. Marinette told herself that there’s nothing wrong with this, they were just friends with the possibility of contacting the other anywhere and anytime, for the first time.

Marinette also reached out to Kagami to make sure she was coming to the concert as planned. She didn’t want to neglect her friend over this stupid issue they had. The tiny detail of Marinette being head over heels for said friend's boyfriend. For God’s sake, people were starving in the world, this wasn’t humanity’s biggest problem.

So, Saturday night arrived upon them without any major changes in the power play.

Marinette was standing before the mirror, critically contemplating what to do with her hair. With the help of Tikki, she has already managed to pick out a [plain black dress](https://fishhooman.tumblr.com/post/170050975936/designed-some-outfits-that-were-loosely-based-on) to wear for the night. She added a red blazer for temperature reasons, and because heck yes, it looked good on her. To spark up her look with flashy jewels was out of the question, she stuck to her earrings and the necklace with the ring on it. Her makeup was also ready, so it was the matter of her hairdo that lay ahead. She was trying to arrange it into a magnificent braid, when the doorbell went off, which meant Alya has arrived. She gave up on pulling off an exotic hairstyle, made her signature pigtailed look hastily and bolted down the stairs.

Alya was chatting with her parents downstairs. She was wearing a white short jumpsuit with an orange mantle and black boots. She pulled off resembling her superhero persona quite well.

“Take care girls, and don’t stay out too late!” Marinette’s parents waved them off.

They were chatting in excitement while in the light of the setting sun they approached the nearby park where the concert was held. When they got there, they had a bit of trouble finding their classmates in the crowd, but they were a lot and they were loud. They were sitting at multiple tables next to the park’s fence, quarrelling about something enthusiastically.

“Oh, finally, you are here!” Nino ran up to them, seeming relieved, pulling them closer to the others. “They need your expertise, Alya! These two dorks are debating who was the better superhero since they arrived.” he complained, pointing at Max and Kim, who didn’t seem to notice the arriving girls, being too focused on their heated argument.

“It’s great news!” Alya’s eyes were shining playfully. “I finally get my chance to tell them it was you!” she said and threw herself into the debate.

Marinette smiled and shook her head at her classmates’ behaviour. She reviewed her group of friends and spotted Kagami and Adrien standing on the edge of the debating group, so she went up to them.

“I’m so glad you could come!” she greeted Kagami and pulled the slightly surprised girl into an embrace. “And you too, Adrien! It’s great your parents let you come.” She was determined to act nice. These were her friends, nothing could change that.

“Yes, it’s magnificent. I have never been to a concert before,” Kagami answered aglow.

“You’re going to love it!” Marinette ensured her.

They were chatting for a while, Marinette wanted to know whether there was any change in the attitude of her classmates but they didn’t appear to be any closer than before. Adrien excused himself and went to fetch them drinks.

As soon as he returned, the crowd started to shriek indicating that the concert was about to begin. The group of classmates pushed their way as close to the stage as they could and shouted with the strangers when the Kitty Section made its appearance. They cheered and sang and danced through the show, being familiar with each song from the band’s Youtube channel. They were having a magnificent time, as Kagami predicted. Even Marinette has forgotten all about her problems.

It was too soon when the band has played their last song and went off the stage, accompanied by the audience’s cheers. Marinette headed in the direction of the backstage, pulling her best friend with herself. When they finally get there the next band was already on the stage, rocking their first song. Marinette intended to find Luka. Not to initiate the Talk, this would have been a terrible time, he deserved to enjoy his success, but to congratulate and talk with him like a fair friend would do.

“What’s up with you and Luka?” Alya shouted the question into her ear. They were standing by the gigantic loudspeakers at the entrance of the backstage that consisted of multiple tents raised next to each other. No better space to have this conversation.

“What would be?” Marinette shouted back while scanning the space between the tents for Luka. She didn’t see him anywhere.

“Is everything alright? You acted kinda funny all week and you didn’t even visit him before the concert,” her best friend insisted. Marinette just rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that look, I know if something’s up! You were ignoring his messages, I’ve seen it!”

“Alya, this is not the time nor the place-” Marinette tried, turning to face her friend.

“Tell me! If he’s being a jerk I can take care of that. He won’t even see me coming!” Alya was really sweet, and sometimes unnecessarily ready to take action.

“It’s not him, it’s me!” Marinette tried to say but judging by the loud “What?” from her bestie, she couldn’t be heard. So, she tried again “It’s me! I need to break up with him!” she screamed into the relative silence that was caused by the band just finishing their song, leaving only the audience's rumble to shout through.

Alya’s face went pale, she stared at shock in Marinette’s direction.

“Well, you could have just said so.” Marinette spun around her axis to search for the source of the voice. To her utter dismay, it came from a boy standing at the entrance of the backstage. The boy was Luka, her… whatever. He looked stricken, fixing his burning eyes on her.

“Oh my God, Luka!” She was staring at him in panic, feeling like a fish out of water. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t intend to-”

The band on the stage continued with their second song which made it almost impossible to hear anything else. Luka turned on his heels, making a sound that could be interpreted as an invitation and as many other things. Marinette chose option number one and followed him between the tents, leaving Alya in the entrance.

She cursed her luck, her life, herself for managing this break-up from the start the way she did. She should have just told him straight up, not pretending until it escalated into this. But how could she, he just declared his love to her at that moment. You don’t return an ‘I love you so much that I’m willing to wait for anything you want to say until you feel ready!’ with an ‘I don’t want to be with you anymore because my intentions weren’t on the spot from the beginning, but I just now realized that I only love you as a friend, and I’m in love with someone else!’.

Luka led her inside an empty tent that looked like a changing room and was remarkably quiet considering the fact it stood in the middle of a concert. He turned to face her and questioned mercilessly.

“So, what did you want to tell me?” Luka asked, crossing his arms before his chest. His face was calm but cold, only lit up by his teal eyes burning with emotion.

“I-I’m so sorry, I haven’t intended it to happen this way!”

“Not this. What you’ve told Alya,” he pushed further.

Marinette blinked. She collected all her courage, looked him in the eye and said what she tried to say for a week. “I want to break up.”

They could have cut the silence if they wanted to.

After a pause, realizing that the other won’t make a sound Marinette started to explain.

“I wanted to tell you all week, but we never got to meet and I didn’t want to text you about this. I’m truly sorry Luka, but I-... It’s not right for me to do this to you. I really like you but only as a friend. You deserve so much more than that!” She stood awkwardly in place, not being able to decide whether it was okay to hold his hand to comfort him or not. Probably not.

“But you said you were sure you wanted to hear your tune.” His voice may have sounded like pleading because, in fact, it was. In his eyes, despair took over the previous place of anger.

“Oh, Luka. I was wrong,” she admitted under her breath. Eventually, there was nothing she could do about it.

“So, you wanted to tell me this last Sunday?” The realization shined through his voice. Marinette only nodded. “But I didn’t let you. And then I said I loved you.” His voice went blank again.

“I should have told you then but I couldn’t,” Marinette admitted, sinking her head.

They were standing in silence until he spoke again, something unfamiliar burning in his tone. “Is this because of Adrien?” Marinette looked up and slowly nodded again, in agreement. “But he’s dating Kagami!” The desperation in his voice was so heartbreaking it almost made Marinette cry. Luka looked at her with big puppy eyes, as if praying for her to say this was all a joke.

“He does,” Marinette owned. “But that doesn’t change that it would be unfair to you to keep denying my feelings toward him.” She reached up to her neck and unclipped her necklace. She went up to Luka, took his palm and delicately placed the necklace in it. “I’m sorry Luka. I hope you find someone who loves you the way you deserve. And that one day you can introduce me to them as your friend.” She looked up at him with a serious expression, stood on her tiptoes and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. His vision was blurry when he watched her make her exit.

“But I love you!” He wanted to shout after her but she was no longer there.

* * *

When Marinette arrived back to her friends, who were camping at the same place they have been before, at the beginning of the evening, she was no longer crying. During the ten minutes it took for her to get back here she has gotten over the initial shock and her sorrow for the events going down this way. By the time she reached the others, all she felt was numbness and sorry for her ex-boyfriend.

Alya was standing with Nino, explaining something furiously. She was most likely filling him in on Marinette’s whereabouts while the others continued to party. Adrien and Kagami were not to be seen anywhere. When Marinette approached the couple, they picked up on her presence and the next second Alya’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her into a tight embrace.

“How did it go?” she asked when she let go.

“Honestly, not that bad, considering...” Marinette made a circular movement in the air with her hand, pointing to the whole situation.

“Was he angry?” Nino asked, patting her shoulder sympathetically.

“Not really,” Marinette presumed, chewing on her lip. “But he seemed very sad. Like, I-have-just-shattered-his-heart-to-pieces sad.”

“That’s probably not a good sign,” Alya admitted, wringing her hand. “I’m sorry I pushed you to talk about it, I really shouldn't have. I just supposed, if it was something serious you would have already told me,” she added, feelings of being distrusted reflecting in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Marinette took a deep breath. It was time to confess.

“I couldn’t tell you, without explaining why,” she started, fully aware of how what she was about to say would sound. “And the reason is that I-” Her sentence was cut in by a hideous sputter, coming from the direction of the stage. The previous music died and fearful cries echoed in the crowd as a dark figure has claimed the microphone for himself.

“Thank you, for coming to the concert, Ladies and Gentleman!” A too familiar voice announced that belonged to the mysterious man standing on the centre of the stage, wearing a blue attire with a matching hood. “I’m Capgras, and I’m going to be your host for the rest of the night!” As the party-goers realized what they were facing - Paris’s brand new akumatized villain - shouts and cries filled the air. The mass started hastily in the direction of the exit. “Not so fast!” the villain exclaimed.

He aimed with his index finger and let loose black balls of energy in the direction of the audience. The people he hit lurched and fell on the ground. After a second, they got up over again but nothing seemed to be odd about them. The running crowd stopped to witness the effect. Some of the people who have been hit by the energy ball looked around uncomprehendingly, while the majority of them went absolutely feral. They were shouting at the person who was generally closest to them, but there were exceptions. Those started to push through the other attendee to reach someone.

They were all going on a similar pattern, shouting “What have you done with him?! Where is he?!” to their target before starting hitting them with anything that was inside reach. The targets looked really confused, trying at first to put their attacker at ease. As it seemed, they all knew them.

By this time Marinette was on her way to the nearest toilet or any other place where it was safe to transform. She had to stop this madness. However, she could still hear the villain’s slightly muffled voice.

“As you see, my power is mighty. If you don’t wish to share their fate, and forget, moreover loathe the person you cherish the most, bring me Marinette Dupain-Cheng!” Luka’s voice thundered.

Fortunately, she was already at the door of the restroom when everyone panicked and started to cry for help. For Ladybug, for Chat Noir, for anyone, who knew who Marinette Dupain-Cheng even was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://miabrown007.tumblr.com/) and come say hi if you want!


	5. Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the [monsters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aIVwQFSnVc) to come out

After the Kitty Section’s concert was over Adrien tried to pull out his girlfriend from the crowd. They were slowly pushing to the edge of the mass, where they could finally breathe normally again.

“Do you want to drink something?” Adrien asked the visibly panting Kagami. She nodded and tied their fingers together not to lose each other while they fought their way up to the bar.

Besides the restrooms, this was the only permanent building in the park. As is, this was the only place the music playing outside couldn’t reach. Also, being the only place where they served drinks, it naturally was full.

“So, how did you like it?” Adrien asked as they stood in line to buy two glasses of overpriced orange juice.

“I’m not sure what everyone loves about these events,” Kagami grimaced. “I can’t stand how crowded it is everywhere. However, the concert itself was nice. I didn’t even know I like to dance until now. We should do this going out thing more often!” she stated, laughing up at Adrien, while still holding his hand.

“Definitely!” he agreed as he bent down to give her a kiss.

They didn’t even notice, they were already sipping their juices standing next to the wall, gazing into each other’s eyes. However, the idyllic picture was soonly disturbed by cries infiltrating into the bar. Everyone moved out to the park to get a closer look of what happened.

Adrien had a bad feeling, so he held onto Kagami as he fought his way out the door. From the stage, a familiar voice could be heard, muffled by the distance between them.

“... bring me Marinette Dupain-Cheng!”

If he thought people were panicking before this, oh boy, was he wrong. Everyone lost it. The disturbance was at its highest around the gates leading out of the park.

Adrien wasn’t thinking much, his battle instincts kicked in. His grip tightened around Kagami’s wrist as he moved forward, pulling the girl after him. He didn’t start in the direction of the gates, it would have been useless. He hurried to the corner of the park behind the bar, that was richly covered by trees and bushes. He led the gawking Kagami into the woods.

“Stay here! It’s the safest place you can be right now!” he told her, before turning on his heel.

“But where are _you_ going?” the girl cried after him.

“Uhm… I need to find Marinette!” he improvised, going by the tiny piece of information he bore about the villain at hand, before running back to the restrooms to transform.

* * *

When Ladybug stepped out of the toilet, swinging her yo-yo by her side and scanning the place for Luka, the park looked like a hellscape. The majority of the party-goers swirled in the direction of the gates, but there were too many people. With the occasional attacks taking place in the milling crowd, getting out seemed practically impossible.

“Escort Marinette Dupain-Cheng to me!” A roar could be heard from the direction of the gates, followed by puffs and screams, as probably even more bystander has been hit by the black energy balls.

Ladybug swirled her yo-yo and leapt to the top of the building of the bar, from where she could see everything happening at the gates. They were closed, locking the mass inside the park. Capgras was standing on the top of the gate, towering above the people, who had nowhere to run.

For a moment Marinette felt the heaviness of the situation weigh her down by her shoulders. Luka has been akumatized because of her actions. And his superpower was to make someone hate the person they loved the most. It certainly suited his goals. Which was surprising because Marinette has never thought of him as being the easily akumatized type. He was always calm and collected and understanding. This only made the situation that much worse, Marinette being the one pushing him over the edge. However, this was not the time do dwell on matters of the heart. She had a villain she had to bring down regardless of their personal relationship.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Ladybug yelled as she jumped in his direction, trying to immobilize him. She has learned long ago that sweet-talking to the akumatized victims had no use. The only way to stop their rampage was to take their akumatized object.

Capgras dodged her attack, and send a few black bubbles her way.

“Do you want to give me your Miraculous or Marinette first, Ladybug?” he retorted, attempting to shoot the swirling Ladybug.

“How about this first?” She has tried to wrap her yo-yo around the villain but in the last second, he stepped aside, leaving her weapon to wrap around the cold night air.

They have both registered, that for Ladybug it was hard to fight without any building nearby, to support her jumps and hook her yo-yo on, and she couldn't take down the fight to ground level and risk hurting the panicked citizens. Capgras sent a malevolent smirk her way before he started to the inside of the park, where there were even fewer buildings to stand on, luring Ladybug with him.

All she could do was to follow him and pray for Chat Noir’s immediate show-up. As usual, her kitty didn’t let her long waiting. By the time she arrived near the stage in Capgras’ steps, he was standing beside her, wielding his baton.

“Who are we facing, Bugaboo?”

“He’s Capgras. Don’t let him hit you with those energy balls, it makes you forget things and go absolutely feral. He’s after Marinette Dupain-Cheng. But don’t bother with that, I’ve hidden her so well, he’ll never find her,” she filled him in quickly, not losing sight of her target for a second.

“Great call, My Lady! Do you have a plan?” he asked as they draw closer to their enemy.

The auditorium was relatively empty, compared to the gates’ area but it was clearly not ideal. Citizens squatted all along the edges of the place, trying to stay out of trouble as much as they could.

“I’ve seen him up close when fighting just before. The Akuma must be in his necklace!” Ladybug declared, keeping her voice as neutral as she could.

“Why are so sure?” Chat blinked to her from the corner of his eye.

“Trust me on this one, Kitty!”

With that, she was running into Capgras’ direction, doing her best to get close enough to seize the chain. Chat Noir wasn’t behind. They attacked the villain with their combined force while dodging his bubbles. They made flips and backflips, attacked him together and separately, it seemed to have no use. Thanks to the let loose dark energy balls during the fight, the number of victims only grew.

“We need extra help!” Ladybug finally decided, when they retreated behind a tree, slightly panting. “Can you handle him alone for a few minutes?”

“ _Purr_ fectly. Do what you need to do!”

Ladybug took off, hooking her yo-yo on a building next to the park. She flew above Paris, her head fuzzy from the screaming and the tiring fight. But foremost, now that she had peace for a minute, she couldn’t exile the thoughts from her head concerning Luka. _What has she done to him?!_

She felt like she was on the edge, a possible panic attack lurking in every corner. But she had to make it. She had to save him, and everyone else. There was no other option.  
She landed on her balcony without a sound and made her way to her room rapidly. She wasn’t even thinking, she took the first Miraculous that came to her mind and sprinted back to the open to arrive back at the park without delay.

Once there, she searched the moving crowd with her eyes until she found the person she needed. A friend. Her best friend.

She hopped down next to the tree she was hiding behind, as it looked, from Nino. Alya made a startled sound when she landed but her expression fastly turned from scared to unsure and puzzled.

“Ladybug! What are you doing here?”

“I need your help,” Ladybug admitted, holding out her hand with the Miraculous in it. In an emotionally and physically exhausting time like this, she needed her best friend.  
Alya looked back at her uncomprehendingly. “But my identity was compromised. I thought...”

 _Oh, crap._ Marinette has been so occupied with her personal involvement in the case that she has absolutely forgotten about this tiny detail, that she didn’t intend to give back the Miraculouses to their holders. Because she had majorly fucked up a month ago and their identity became compromised. Not like now, it would have been any different. This was one of those possible mistakes she was afraid she would make. Who was she kidding? While daydreaming about possible mistakes, one that was as amateur as this has never even crossed her mind.

She came back to the present to the feeling of the Miraculous’ weight disappearing from her still outstretched palm. Eyes widened she stared at Alya, who was just putting on the fox Miraculous.

“What are you doing?” Ladybug freaked out. “I made a mistake, I didn’t intend to give it back to you, it just happened. It’s too dangerous!” she protested.

“If you don’t want to give this to Nino, who doesn’t know how to use it, and will go rouge if he sees my face, or recruit someone on the spot than I’m doing this! That freak won’t get a hold of my bestie!” she announced without hesitation, before transforming.

“Thank you, Alya!” She would have hugged the girl if they are not in the middle of a showdown and a little short on time. Instead, they bolted from the trees and joined Chat who was fighting Capgras on the grass in front of the stage.

“Any progress?” Ladybug asked, bringing herself into her fighting stance next to her partner.

“My Cataclysm is down but the gates are open,” he declared, dodging a black ball with a side flip.

“What’s the objective?” Rena Rouge asked, drawing both Chat’s and their enemy’s attention to herself. Chat’s jaw dropped in abashment.

“The necklace,” Ladybug answered, launching herself into action. She dropped down directly before the stage, with her new position cornering their foe in a triangle among the three of them.

“Well, well. Aren’t you a little boastful, Ladybug? Bringing Alya into a fight, and expecting her to leave in one piece?” Capgras laughed as he started to spin around and fire his shots in every direction.

The three heroes dodged the bubbles, getting closer and closer to him. When he turned his back to Ladybug to fire in the other direction, the heroine closed the distance with a leap, stretching her arm to reach him. Her fingers were already on his hood, to yank it off and grab the akumatized necklace when he spun around his axis, looked her mischievously in the eyes and shot her with a bolt of energy.

“Got you!” he laughed as he immediately jumped across above her head before the heroes could do anything, and landed on his feet on the stage. He mustered the scene curiously waiting.

Ladybug lurched, feeling the cold widespread in her body from the point in her stomach where he had hit her. Strangely enough, she didn’t feel any different. She looked at her hands, but they seemed normal. She lifted her gaze to meet Alya’s worried expression.

“My Lady, are you all right?”

She yanked her head in the direction of the voice, that clearly belonged to Chat Noir. However, the seemingly concerned pair of eyes that sat behind his mask didn’t belong to Chat Noir. They were just as green, as his, but they clearly belonged to someone else, with the rest of his face and body. A person, who looked just like Chat Noir was standing in front of her, but she didn’t know who he was. He was certainly not her kitty. He was an impostor, she felt it with every nerve in her body.

“What have you done to him?” The question wasn’t louder than a whisper, still full of determination and hatred. She didn’t know who he was, or how he dared to stand before her with her kitty’s face in place of his own, but she didn’t care. Rage bolted in her at the sight, pushing her to question him until he confessed. “What did you do to Chat Noir? Where is he?!” Her voice grew louder with every word until she was shouting.

She started in Chat’s direction, her fingers itching to get a hold of him and beat out the answers of him if necessary. Of course, it wasn’t Chat. It was someone else, looking exactly like he did, posing in his place, looking at her panic-stricken with his eyes. She wanted answers and she wanted them fast, so she repeated the question one last time. “Where is Chat Noir?!”

Her sight was blocked by her best friend, who stepped between them and hissed at ‘Chat’. “Get out of here immediately!”

“But… I don’t understand.” It was her kitty’s voice, there was no doubt about that but the man standing behind her friend couldn’t possibly be him. She has tried to get thought Alya and put her hands on him, to make him tell what did he do the real Chat Noir, but the girl was moving to restrict her from doing so.

“Get out now, you stupid cat! She can’t see you until this is over!” Rena shouted at him, still holding back Ladybug.

Ladybug has heard tentative steps, to which she just fought harder. He was going to escape, and she was never going to find out what happened to her kitty!

“Where is he, what have you done to him?” she yelled again at her last exasperation, but if the quiet left in place of the sound of his steps was anything to go by, he has managed to escape. Ladybug felt wrathful. Rena Rouge let him get away! _What an insufferable sidekick, doing the exact opposite of what she’s supposed to do._

“He’s gone,” the hero stated.

“I know, and it is all your fault! How am I going to track him down now? How am I going to find out what he did to Chat?!” Ladybug yelled.

“Not him. Capgras.” She pointed to the stage’s direction and she was right. It was empty. “You’ll have your chance to deal with the impostor after this, but Paris needs you now. After we defeat Capgras, I’m going to help you find him. I promise!”

From somewhere in the distance they could hear orders, that backed up the heroine’s statement. “Bring me Marinette Dupain-Cheng!”

Right, that was what this was all about. Ladybug almost forgot. She was still angry at Rena and wanted to track down that fraud desperately but deep inside she knew her friend was right. The matter of Capgras was a bit more pressing, if only by a hairbreadth. She had to stop him, it was her duty. After that, she would have all the time in the world to find Chat Noir and beat the cat food out of the fake.

Now she had a task at hand that she had to focus on, to stop Luka and knock him back to his senses. It didn’t matter how much she had hurt him earlier, this was no way to treat his heartbreak. Accomplishing this became really urgent all of a sudden because of the fake Chat’s appearance. Only God knew what he did to her kitty so she had to hunt them down as soon as she was done with Capgras. She hoped she would find Chat fast and unharmed, for the fraud’s sake. He didn’t wanted to see what she was capable of for her partner.

“We better get this over with. _Lucky Charm!_ ” She threw her yo-yo in the air grumpily and caught the item falling from the sky.

It was a derby hat. An oh-so-familiar derby hat with a pigeon feather and delicate gold embroidery on its side. It fell into her hands upside down, so the letters were distinct as they read “Marinette”.

“What are you supposed to do with this?” Rena asked, probably furrowing her brows. With her mask on, one couldn’t really tell. “Do you think we should involve Marinette?”  
“Nope.” Ladybug felt like throwing her Lucky Charm away for good and going after the fraud immediately. She needed her answers, but most importantly, she didn’t like this Lucky Charm a bit.

“Maybe it could work. He would let Marinette close to him since that’s what he wants. It would be easy for her to seize his chain. However, it would be terribly dangerous...” Rena lamented.

The sad truth was that this was Ladybug’s first thought, too. However, she didn’t want to consider this as a plan. If they needed Marinette to show up, that meant Ladybug disappearing in the middle of the fight. It not only would have been awfully suspicious but they would be without her yo-yo to purify the Akuma. She didn’t even dare to progress with this potential plan in her mind and imagine herself standing in front of Luka, as Marinette, saying she loved him and only him, to win his trust. That would be straight-up cruel.

She looked up to Rena, to see her face reflecting speculation for only a split second before her figure lit up in the familiar dotted pattern. She looked down at the derby hat, only to see the same pattern appearing on it and on her hands as well. _Screw insensitive ancient magic!_

“Okay, we need Marinette,” she said, taking a slow, deep breath. “And I know how we’re going to get her.”

* * *

Marinette’s heart raced faster as she got closer. She was about to trick poor, sweet Luka. Again. The only difference was that, if everything went according to plan, only she was going to remember it this time. This made the approaching pangs of conscience slightly more bearable.

She walked through the crowd confidently to reach Capgras, who was standing on the top of the bar’s building and seemed furious about his still unfulfilled request. People nearby were fighting, demanding to know the whereabouts of their real loved ones from each other. In a twisted, heinous way it was adorable.

“Are you searching for me? Well, here I am!” Marinette stood on the edge of the crowd that left the grass before the bar empty, looking up at Capgras. To say, she was feeling anxious would have been an understatement. She needed all her self control and her best poker face to pull this off. However, this was part of her learning curve, that the Guardian had to do what needed to be done.

“Marinette!” the villain exclaimed, coming down to ground level with a quick jump. The rage in his eyes was calming, but he was still distant. “Is it really you?”

“Who else would it be?” She smiled softly at him, before going on. “Luka, you need to stop this! Look at all these people! You’re hurting them!”

“It looked like that didn’t stop _you_ before. But finally, we can be together, as it should be! As soon as you forget that pathetic model! I have waited for this so long!” A wicked laugh leaving his throat as he pointed at the seemingly terrified Marinette and shot her with a black ball of energy.

The girl fell on the ground, feeling the cold run through her veins once again, only to lose its effect. When she looked up, Capgras was standing in front of her, just out of reach, looking at her curiously, to examine the impact. Marinette pushed herself back to her feet, keeping the eye-contact with the villain all along.

“Luka...” she whispered, stretching her arm to reach him.

“Do you...? What do you think of me? ” He was still cautious, but certainly on the edge to believe, he has ultimately succeeded.

“I think that you are caring, and trustworthy, and overall wonderful. I don’t know what I was thinking when I let you go. Can we go back to the way things were? Please?” It was easier for Marinette to say it since half of it was true.

Capgras’ eyes lit up with affection and he closed the space between the two of them, pulling Marinette into an embrace. Her hands were on his chest, trapped between the two of them. She couldn’t grab the necklace like this, she needed to distract him. He was handing the perfect opportunity for that on a plate to her.

“I love you!” he said with his face only centimeters from hers, a warm smile spreading on it, while they stood with their eyes locked, his hands on her back.

“I love you, too!” she lied to him before their lips met.

He didn’t feel the single teardrop rolling down her face. He was kissing her passionately, with his eyes closed. The girl’s were, however, open, kissing him back while reaching up to cup his face between her hands. Or as it seemed to him. Instead, she put her palm lightly on his collarbone, fingers closing around the necklace before ripping it off with a steady hand.

Luka gaped as she broke the embrace, practically jumping away from him, to watch him detransform and a dark purple butterfly emerge from the chain she was holding. At this moment, Rena Rough, who was standing nearby, hiding in the crowd, released her mirage. The coat of magic peeled off of Marinette, and Ladybug was standing in her previous place. She took her yo-yo from her waist and swung it in the air to capture the Akuma. Rena leapt beside her, offering her the derby hat she was holding for her since she turned her into Marinette. Ladybug took it, dropped it in the air and watched as the magic purified the park.

People stopped yelling and hitting one another and looked confused before pulling each other into a hug. Ladybug felt her repressed urge to hunt down the fake Chat Noir evaporate, leaving only consternation in its place. How could have she believed it wasn’t really Chat?

Rena Rouge held out her fist, waiting for her, so Ladybug pushed her own knuckles to hers.

“Pound it!” they said simultaneously. The fox hero’s eyes were shining.

“Thank you for your help, I couldn’t have done it without you!” Ladybug smiled at her warmly, before turning to Luka, who was sitting on the grass, his face buried in his hands.

“I think you’re Luka, right?” Ladybug approached him. “You have been akumatized, but it’s over now. Everything will be alright!” She put her hand reassuringly on his shoulder.

“What do you know about that?” He yanked apart for her touch and stood up hastily to meet her gaze from his regular height. The fire still burnt on the bottom of his eyes.

“I understand, how you must feel. It can be horrible to get broken up with, but look at it this way. If she loves someone else, it wouldn’t have worked, however long you try. Now you get a new chance to be happy!” Ladybug put a small, confident smile on her face, nothing like the emotions she was experiencing.

“With all due respect Ladybug, you don’t know anything about me, so just leave me alone,” he said as he walked away, hands in his pocket.

Marinette stood there awkwardly, dressed as Ladybug, watching him until he got out of sight. She was holding her necklace with the ring she got from her ex on it. She guessed he didn’t want it back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are highly appreciated! :)  
> (Also, wondering how I name my villains? I panic over not being able to find a good name until I restructure their power completely to match a psychology themed easter egg. Totally worth it!)


	6. Sleeping in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the emotional chapters _mainly_ just kids being kids with some Adrigami fluff (enjoy while it lasts~)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When all you want to do is [sleeping in](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DCno6uF2ro5g&sa=D&ust=1593809966012000&usg=AFQjCNEf0fktgG8R0XkTmxejQR2g9I6e_g)

Adrien was woken up by a soft knock on his door. He groaned and buried his face into his pillow. All he wanted was to sleep a little longer before going to school and Chinese lesson and fencing practice. Was that too much to ask for?

“I’ll be down in five minutes, Nathalie!” he cried out, bracing himself for getting out of bed. He must have slept through his alarm.

The door slipped open and he sat up surprisedly. It wasn’t like Nathalie to come into his room. She usually just reminded him how late he was and went on with her daily routine. However, this morning it wasn’t Nathalie who waked him up, as it turned out. A much younger someone stood at the door, looking at him with her brown eyes, a mischievous grin lurking in the corner of her mouth.

Adrien gaped at the sight of his girlfriend, but the realization hit him immediately. She was sleeping over. Which meant it was Sunday. No school, no lessons, only spending the morning with Kagami. The thought drew a bright smile to his face.

“Well, you’re certainly not Nathalie,” he declared playfully as he jumped out of bed and hurried to the girl. “I’m kinda glad about it. Have you slept well?” He pressed a soft kiss to his girlfriend’s head.

“Surprisingly! Considering, what an insane night we had yesterday,” Kagami answered, stepping inside the room. She was already fully dressed, her makeup on point, and certainly didn’t have bedhaid, the kind Adrien imagined he was wearing.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” Adrien started, scratching the nape of his neck with one hand.

“You don’t need to apologise. It is not like you would have akumatized Luka” said Kagami, dismissing his tendency to apologize for every inconvenience she ever had. “So, what’s our schedule for today?” she asked, throwing herself down on the couch.

Adrian didn’t exactly have an answer for this. Of course, he had planned their date. He picked up Kagami yesterday night at 6 o’clock, sharp. After that, they went to the concert. They were socializing a bit with his classmates, then they were dancing for the Kitty Section’s songs, and then he bought her a drink. According to the plan they were to go back to the concert and enjoy the second half of it before heading home. Instead of this, he hid Kagami in the safest place he could find and went to fight the akumatized Luka alongside Ladybug. Until she got hit by that weird forgetting bubble and started to go rogue on him like the other bystanders did with a particular person. He still didn’t get what happened exactly. So, when he fled to Alya’s utmost encouragement he planned to hide and follow the events from a distance, to be able to step up and help if needed. Only, his time as Chat Noir came to its end and by the time he could be his hero alter ego again Ladybug has already defeated Capgras.

While order was being restored and everyone started to get on their way home he successfully found Kagami and to cover his absence he claimed to be hit by the evil bubbles. They got home but instead of watching a movie like he planned they just headed to bed. Kagami looked worn out after the eventful night and he also felt too tired to protest to follow the standard sleepover action plan.

However, as he now realized with a spark of worry, he had no plans for the morning after this.

“We could have breakfast,” Adrien finally suggested the first thing that came into his mind.

“I suppose,” Kagami agreed. She examined him from head to toe before she added with a small smile on her face. “Just dress up before that.”

Adrien looked down to his attire and felt his face go red, to match the pyjama pants he was wearing. It was decorated with black spots. Of course it was. And Kagami was giggling at him. He decided he had to reconsider his sleeping clothes if he planned to keep inviting over the girl. He mumbled something about complying with the suggestion and disappeared in the bathroom.

He reappeared after a few minutes, all dressed up, perfectly collected. They headed towards the kitchen. He hoped Plagg wouldn’t mind that he had to serve breakfast for himself from the mini-fridge in his bedroom.

Upon arriving at the ground floor, the clock on the wall let them know the time was somewhat after ten. However, the house looked abandoned. There was no kitchen staff, no Nathalie. Adrien even checked his father’s office but there was no sign of him either. It was fairly stranger but there must have been an important event where he had to show up, and Nathalie must have gone with him.

He went back to Kagami who was waiting for him in the dining hall. “It looks like breakfast is up to us!”

The girl’s eyebrows slightly raised at the idea but she followed him when he went on in the direction of the kitchen nevertheless.

The kitchen was huge. Not as huge as the one in the hotel where they had been fencing while hiding from their responsibilities, only huge enough that Adrien had no idea where to find anything. Not like he would have been a regular here. His food usually was served to him, he couldn’t tell the last time he has been in this room. The last time he had cooked something himself was easy to remember though. It was when Marinette’s dad showed up at school and gave them a lesson on being a baker. It was easy to remember because that was his only attempt at the matter.

“What do you say to some pancakes?” he asked as he scanned the shelves for materials.

“Do you know how to make them?” Kagami asked, not bothering to hide her surprise at his proposal.

“Well, it can’t be that hard.” He shrugged and went on a scavenger hunt.

He opened every cupboard, examined their inside before closing them back again. He had to admit, it would have been easier if he knew what he was looking for.

“Er... Could you look it up, what do we need?” He turned back to Kagami after he rummaged through the cupboards and only held a bag of flour. That must be an ingredient, isn’t it?

Kagami was trying hard to maintain a straight face but at the look of Adrien’s lost expression she couldn’t take it anymore. Laughter bubbled out of her and she had to hold onto the kitchen counter to keep her balance. At first Adrien was irritated by her behaviour but finally he had to admit it was, in fact, funny.

“You’re not taking this seriously!” he scolded the girl playfully.

“Sorry, it’s just- Do you even know how a blender works? Because I most certainly don’t,” Kagami admitted, stepping close to him, still giggling.

“Of course I know!” Adrien answered in pretended indignation. “But do you really think we’ll need that?” he added, sounding a little taken aback.

“Let’s find out!” Kagami offered, pulling out her phone and searching for a recipe. “We can do without it,” she confirmed optimistically, looking back up at him.

Adrien sighed in relief while peering at the phone to make out the ingredients. Kagami hushed him away and started to read aloud the things they needed. They rummaged through the various shelves and boxes until everything was nicely stocked up on the kitchen island in the middle of the room.

As it turned out, this was the easy part of the process. Adrien blessed the gods of the internet research engine for they found a recipe that detailed measurements in cups instead of grams and liters. If not, they would have to spend an extra ten minutes finding the scale.

They started to add the ingredients one by one to a big mixing bowl, and Kagami spotted the tiny piece of eggshell that made it into the mix just in time to remove it. Things were going smoothly. Precisely up to the point, when they started to stir the mixture to achieve a well-combined texture.

“Do you think, it should look like this?” Kagami proposed the tentative question, eyeing the mixture.

“It doesn’t look too bad.” Adrien presumed. Sure it was a little uneven and had a few lumps in it from the flour they couldn’t combine perfectly with the other ingredients, but it looked decent. Not like Adrien had ever seen pancake batter before it was baked but he could imagine it looked something like this.

Kagami looked for the possible toppings while Adrien started to bake the pancakes in a pan that looked suitable for the job. He had managed to burn the first one, not realizing in time that it needed to be flipped over, but the ones after that turned out pretty decent. They stocked the finished products onto a plate, applied Nutella as a topping and each took a tentative bite.

“Actually, it’s not bad!” Kagami decided, spreading jam on her second pancake while sitting on the kitchen island. It was fascinating that she could do so, with no adult around to scold her for her inappropriate behaviour.

“Told you!” Adrien wanted to say but his voice was muffled by the big bite he was munching on.

“Do you think next time we could try something more advanced? Like macarons?” Kagami asked excitedly.

“Definitely. And while we’re at it we can take orders for wedding cakes,” Adrien teased, but seeing Kamagi’s long face he explained with a soft smile. “Macarons are pretty advanced, or so I’ve heard, but we could definitely make some cookies for example.”

“That’d be great!” she said, finishing her breakfast. She didn’t add how she always admired, and a little bit envied Marinette for being so good in the kitchen, and being able to turn up for every event her friends organized with a batch of home-made deliciousness. Also, for being invited to these kinds of events in general.

Their breakfast was interrupted by Adrien’s phone. It buzzed one on the kitchen counter that was followed by several more. The boy’s brows raised in consideration while he grabbed the device to learn, who was trying to contact him so desperately.

The messages weren’t directly to him. They had a group chat with Alya, Nino and Marinette, that was being flooded with the texts.

 _Alya:_ Mari, don’t freak out!

 _Alya:_ I barely mention you but I had to write an article about the attack yesterday!

 _Alya:_ I mean, it’s HUGE!

 _Alya:_ This is the new of the year and it’s only April!

 _Alya:_ And I got to witness it firsthand!

 _Alya:_ Still can’t believe it!

Alya sent a link to the Ladyblog’s newest article. Its title was displayed in the chat as a preview. It read:

_“Are Ladybug and Chat Noir secretly dating?”_

Adrien gasped and pressed on the link like his life depended on it. He may or may not have forgotten to take a breath while at it. The page loaded at an impossible slothful rate but slowly the lines appeared.

_“Hawkmoth’s newest attack took place on Saturday night, at the lately discovered band, the Kitty Section’s concert. The band’s guitarist was the victim of the akumatization, after the unexpected breakup with his girlfriend. The musician turned into Capgras, a supervillain whose power was related to changing the memories and emotions concerning the person one loves the most. The people who got hit by his attacks were unable to recognize their significant others (in most cases); and considered them an impostor, who took their loved one's place and somehow got rid of the real person._

_Before defeating the villain, Ladybug herself got hit by the evil magic and turned against her partner, Chat Noir, who as a result of this had to be removed from the scene. Considering, Capgras’ power was only affecting one's most important relationship, it's safe to say that the heroes of Paris are pretty close to each other. Judging by Chat Noir's notorious flirting tendencies, he's not indifferent towards our spotted heroine, and the events of yesterday seem to tell the same for Ladybug. Are our heroes secretly dating each other and if…"_

Adrien stopped reading, he didn't care about the rest. He was staring at the lines, his heart throbbing in his chest like he had fought three akumas at the same time.

This wasn’t possible. This is not what happened yesterday. He would have recognized if Ladybug… He had to admit, his grasp on what Capgras’ power did exactly was a bit loose. What Ladybug told him was that it makes you forget things and act like you’re not yourself but she didn’t detail it. It could technically mean not recognising your favourite person but why wouldn’t she have told him that? However, he had no doubt that Alya knew very well what she was talking about, since she was the one who removed Chat Noir from the scene when he had no idea why Ladybug’s behaviour changed so drastically. So, it had to be true.

Adrien’s stomach twists at the thought. Could it be possible, that despite all the years of rejection, Ladybug loved him? Maybe she was afraid it would impede them working together. Or maybe she was afraid it would endanger their identities. But that wasn’t a concern anymore. She knew who he was so it didn’t make any sense.

Unless, and this idea made his heart jump to his throat, she was in love with Adrien Agreste all along. She just figured it out, they’re the same person, so that would explain… But that couldn’t be. She dated a boy, the boy she was yearning after for years. So why the sudden interest?

Adrien caught himself doing it again. Contemplating his possibilities with Ladybug when he was dating Kagami was an old, bad habit of his. He had to snap out of it. He was committed, he couldn’t let his mind roam, jump to conclusions and fuck up his relationship with his girlfriend.

Kagami was watching him with curiosity in her eyes. “What’s that? You look… emotional.”

Adrien handed her the phone slightly reluctantly and leaned on the counter while the girl was reading the article. In the place of her initial puzzled expression emerged a more empathetic look, with a slight shade of annoyance. When she was done reading, she made a small discontented sound and quickly typed something in the phone.

“We’re going to Marinette’s place!” She declared, handing back Adrien the device.

“We- What?” He blinked, taken aback by the sudden change of plans. Truthfully, he had been a little preoccupied by thoughts like “Maybe Ladybug’s subconscious didn’t mean favourite person in a romantic way”.

“We’re going to Marinette’s place,” Kagami repeated. “She just broke up with Luka. Well, it was kind of obvious from the turns of events but it looks serious. I can see you’re just as worried about her as I am, so we’ll go and check on her.”

Adrien couldn’t argue with that. After all, he was worried about Marinette, even if that wasn’t his top priority right now. But Kagami was right. He had to reschedule the problems concerning his double life and go help a friend instead.

* * *

Marinette was sitting on her bed and staring at the wall at the other side of the room. She didn’t know what to do with herself. Normally, she would be hanging out with Luka in a calm Sunday like this, but that program got cancelled, probably for forever. She figured, that’s just how breakups are. You rip off the bandage with a few words but the hard part only comes after that; restructuring your life to fill the sudden void.

She was fine, of course, she wouldn’t take it back, but she wouldn’t have done it this way either, if she got a second chance. Hurting Luka so much that he got akumatized, and after his empowered feelings vanished still stayed mad at her wasn’t part of the plan at all. She felt miserable about it and the worst part was she couldn’t do anything, neither in nor out of her costume. She wasn’t used to situations where the only thing to do was to wait.

During the morning, pangs of conscience nested in her heart, accompanied by a little sadness. Of course Luka had it worse than her but there was no rule according to which she couldn’t feel the loss of the relationship. And this was the time to do so, which meant sitting a bit more in her pyjamas before moving on with her life. It was ridiculous how many memories they made during this short, crazy month. So she stayed and relived them before letting them go for good.

Her activity was disturbed by the constant buzzing of her phone. It wasn’t likely that she wanted to speak with whoever was blowing it up, but it could be an akuma attack.

In a sense, it was. Just not a new one.

Marinette’s face went pale as she opened her messages and was welcomed by a brand new article on the Capgras incident, written by Alya. At this point, there were already so many problems with this fact. Things only got worse when she read the title.

_“Are Ladybug and Chat Noir secretly dating?”_

She was so going to kill Alya for this.

In a heartbeat, the article was open and her heart raced faster with every sentence. Luckily, Marinette was almost entirely cut out of the story, including the details of Ladybug’s ‘brilliant move’ - dirty trick - to defeat her opponent. As Marinette, she almost couldn’t hold anything against the story. As Ladybug, on the other hand… If her best friend’s attempts at trying to unmask the heroine of Paris weren't causing her enough trouble, now the same friend also filled in everyone in the city, if not in the world, about her tragic lovelife.

Of course, she told herself, Alya couldn’t know; but speculating about things like this behind others’ back still felt like crossing the line. She had no right to handle this non-existing relationship like public property! Marinette could see how her friend didn’t mean any harm, she only got carried away by the exciting story about her favourite celebrities, but still! How was she going to explain to Chat (to Adrien!), that this wasn’t what it looked like? When in reality, it was exactly what it looked like. Maybe she could convince Alya to take down the article before he could see it.

Marinette couldn’t be bothered by the ringing doorbell nor her buzzing phone (why was it still buzzing, she didn’t even answer Alya’s first messages), she was too preoccupied with freaking out. Why was everything going awry in her life?

But the texts just kept coming, at a rate she couldn’t ignore anymore. If she answered, then maybe Alya will leave her alone, Marinette thought to herself and reopened the app. However, to her utmost fright, the new messages didn’t all come from Alya. What she hadn’t noticed before was that Alya posted the article to their group chat, that involved Adrien(!). So much about hiding it from him. Particularly, since he was typing.

 _Adrien:_ Meet you at Marinette’s in 15 minutes! ~Kagami

Marinette’s phone flew through the room with the speed of light, just to crash into the emerging trapdoor. The arriving Alya and Nino looked a bit startled by the unfriendly welcome but they came up the stairs nevertheless.

“Girl, that article isn’t that bad!” Alya tried to comfort her as she picked up the phone.

“This is a nightmare! Adrien AND Kagami are coming over!” Marinette exclaimed, collapsing on her bed. But just as fast she was back in sitting position again, starting to crawl out of bed. “While at it, what are YOU doing here?” She reached the ground with a jump and pointed her index finger sternly at the couple.

“We have brought chocolate!” Nino offered her a box of bonbons as if hoping that would fix everything. It wasn’t red with black dots on it or just the slightest miraculous, so from Marinette it was a no.

“I’m not sad, I’m angry!” Marinette stormed. “How could you write that down? And send it to Adrien? You shouldn’t even seen it happen!” She froze and inspected her friends’ faces in worry. Her tongue slipped. She wasn’t mad in the place of Marinette, she was mad as Ladybug. Which she couldn’t be. Not right now. She kept making the same mistakes over and over again. The stress was causing her to lose track of her identities and act on the other’s impulses. If they found out about her double life because of a stupid mistake like this, she would never forget it to herself.

“I-I’m sorry. But I didn’t even write you into it. I’m sure he didn’t pick up on it. Besides, he comes here with Kagami, that only backs it up. He’s clueless.” Alya was a little white and a lot taken aback by her invective.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. The article was fine, I’m just... really stressed out. And a little sad,” Marinette admitted willingly, trying to cover up her traces as she accepted the desserts from Nino.

“What do you mean Adrien’s clueless?” Nino chimed in, scratching his head in confusion.

Marinette snorted at his bothered look. Alya was right, boys are utterly oblivious.

“He doesn’t know that I’ve broken up with Luka because I still love him,” she declared openly. There was no use hiding it from Nino. He spent so much time with Alya, he would have figured it out sooner or later. Besides, he knew about her crush before, and didn’t give it away.

“So, Capgras wanted to delete Adrien from your mind?” Nino summarized the events of last night, gasping at the new information. Marinette nodded sheepishly. “That’s rough buddy!”

"Yeah. But now is probably not a good time to let him in on such details. He's with Kagami anyway, so it doesn't matter. I don't want to ruin my friendship with either of them because of this," Marinette said carefully, fidgeting the box between her palms. "I just couldn't let Luka believe a lie any longer," she added, shrugging her shoulder.

Alya didn't say a word just pulled her into a tight embrace. Marinette caught herself wiping down a nonexisting silent teardrop. The hug was disturbingly reminiscent of the one from last night. She could feel that she would be reliving that embrace in her nightmares before the memory fades.

"So, what was exactly your plan for today?" Marinette asked, trying to force a playful tone out of herself as they let go.

"Oh, just the this-is-my-bff's-first-breakup standard package. Chocolate, tissues, crappy romantic movies, coming to the conclusion that every man is horrible and we're better off without them," Alya listed.

"Hey!" Nino protested, painting a faint smile on Marinette's face.

"Or I can beat all of you in Ultimate Mecha Strike III," she proposed, with a dash of excitement in her voice.

"We'll see about that!" Nino bragged before he started to the living room to bring the console to life.

"I'll get dressed, meet you downstairs."

Alya gave an encouraging squeeze to her hand before she went after her boyfriend.

Marinette took a deep breath and headed to the bathroom. She felt like a mess and suspected that she probably also looked like one. She was determined to make it seem otherwise.

After twelve minutes of getting her look together to resemble a zombie a bit less, and taking another four minutes to get her head collected and fully in Marinette mode, she headed downstairs.

At this exact moment, the bell rang, indicating the arrival of the last two guest. Marinette let them inside, only to face Kagami's questioning look.  
"Don't your parents know?"

"They were curious about why you had a party, as they put it," Adrien explained with an apologetic look as they stepped inside.

"Actually, I have yet to tell them. We didn't see each other this morning," Marinette said anxiously.

Kagami's mouth formed a little o, indicating how surprised she was that her parents didn't know about such an important life event by at least twelve hours after its occurrence.

"We're sorry, Marinette. About what happened with Luka," Adrien said, placing a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder.

"It-It’s fine, really.” Her anxiousness made her giggle but that wasn’t how she meant to respond at all. “I meant to say thank you! And thank you for coming, it means a lot.”  
“Of course,” Kagami smiled at her.

They went to the living room where Nino and Alya have already arranged the video game's setup and were only waiting for them.

“Are you ready get schooled by the master of video games, Marinette?” Nino teased her, swinging one of the controllers in her direction.

“As if!” the girl laughed before taking place on the couch and forcefully concentrating all of her attention on beating Nino.

Alya brought snacks from the kitchen and they were taking turns, mostly trying and failing to best Marinette. She couldn’t help it, she was good at this game.

Spending time in her circle of friends calmed down Marinette’s wrecked nerves. She could genuinely laugh at their jokes, play along when teasing started and overall, have a good time. For a few hours she didn’t think about Luka, or being a superhero, or Adrien, who although present, did this only as a supportive friend. Even Kagami being there felt like a delight. Marinette’s mood was on an uprising spiral, standing as evidence of the power of friendship and distraction.

“Oh, this one is interesting!” Alya exclaimed, scrolling through her phone. She was, for whatever reason, looking up tests with the most ridiculous topics, like “What kind of pastry would you be?” (for which Marinette’s answer was most definitely cinnamon bun).

At the console Kagami was fighting Nino, desperately trying to seize a victory to satisfy her need for achievement despite being not very well rounded in video games. Adrien was watching them from the armchair while Marinette peered over her best friend’s shoulder.

“Which Hogwarts house do you belong to?” she read out the title.

“Hufflepuff!” Nino answered without hesitation, keeping his gaze at the game all along.

“That was quite a ready answer,” Adrien mused.

“Don’t act so shocked. It’s not like you would need an actual test to find out these things,” Alya laughed.

“Exactly. Knowing your Hogwarts house by heart is the very least the word expects from you. It’s the first step on the voyage of self-discovery,” Marinette advised.

“What’s yours then?”

“What do you think, Hufflepuff boy?” Alya questioned him, an impish grin lurking in the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t know,” he answered, looking a little timid but curious at the same time.

“Gryffindor, obviously,” Alya said, puffing out her chest. “Marinette on the other hand-”

“The kindest Slytherin you’ll ever have the chance to encounter,” Nino finished the sentence grinning.

“Also, my patronus is a black cat,” Marinette added naturally, with an innocent smile on her face.

Adrien felt the dormant butterflies in his stomach come to life at that smile. It must have been the sign of his suppressed delight of how right Marinette actually was, even if she didn’t know it. A black cat would always be there to protect her. After all, what are friends for?


	7. Glitter & Crimson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In every relationship, there is a point where you just can't hide your feelings anymore. Marnette reaches her limit which can only mean one thing. It's time to spill!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She is [glitter and crimson](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D2ptMQhIInOU&sa=D&ust=1593809966012000&usg=AFQjCNG7WorRVwBNdJBQj10ydBM6uNJFnQ) in herself

The Parisian night sky was already dotted with brightly shining stars when Chat Noir departed from his bedroom. Jumping from roof to roof he cornered the Eiffel tower, where their unusual meeting with Ladybug was due.

Soon after they said their goodbyes to Marinette and he escorted Kagami home safely, he couldn’t stay put anymore. Alya’s article bugged him like never before. He messaged Ladybug, and she agreed to meet him. She didn’t ask him why. Maybe his text ( _“Could we talk tonight?”_ ) wasn’t that much of a giveaway about the direction of the conversation, as Plagg tried to point it out, supporting his claims with forum entries from the internet. After all, you could find evidence for and against anything at that place, so Adrien wasn’t convinced that those people, who claimed to be relationship experts were actually right.

Arriving at the meeting point, he was waiting for Ladybug patiently, leaning against the metal structure of the tower. His thoughts raced with unbearable speed but he kept his expression neutral, as the heroine landed in front of him.

“It’s good to see you, My Lady. The last time we met you weren’t really yourself, as I presume.”

“That might had to do something with getting hit by that akuma,” Ladybug said, walking closer to him.

Adrien couldn’t read her expression. Did she know about the article? Did she know that he knew what yesterday’s events meant? Did he actually know what they meant? Was he just making up things that resulted in his wildest dreams and worst nightmares coming to life at the same time? He needed answers. He needed the truth, however unpleasant it was.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to yell at you, or attack you, or any of those things,” the girl went on, rubbing on her elbow.

“No need to apologise, it was not your fault, My Lady,” Adrien pointed out the obvious. “However, you could have warned me that that was a possibility.”

Ladybug stayed silent, eyeing him in anticipation. As if her vague description of their enemy’s power was totally intentional. Just in case things would go awry. Which they did.

“I have to give it to him, Capgras was an extraordinary opponent,” Chat went on, sounding tentative. “I was at one minute enjoying the concert with my friends, at the other you bring the world crashing down, accusing me of being an impostor. Like anyone could replace me!” he finished with a joke to ease the tension that was starting to cover them wholly.

“I think that was the whole point, that they couldn’t,” Ladybug joked, her voice hitting a slightly higher note than usual.

“It’s funny you mention that.” Adrien’s stomach was twisting but he was ready to secure those answers. He took the fearsome jump, forming the sentences in a casual manner. “By chance, I have encountered an article, written by Rena Rouge herself. From the turns of events she deduced that we may be secretly dating. Anything to report on your side concerning this question?”

“I’m not Kagami, so that’s pretty unlikely,” the girl blurted out sheepishly.

Adrien has never seen Ladybug act so shy, so reserved, so not-Ladybug. At this moment she spookily reminded him of someone but the feeling faded away almost instantly.

“You know my girlfriend?” he managed to say.

“Barely,” she choked.

“Well, that isn’t important now.” He had to keep his focus. Answers, the answers. “What is important is that when you got hit, and freaked out about me not being me. That was...”

Ladybug took a deep breath, visibly braced herself and tucked away her embarrassment. She slightly nodded with her head as an approval while she locked eyes with her partner. “That was because I love you.”

“Love me like ‘I’m the best partner you’ve ever had’ or love me like-”

“Love you like you’re the only one I have ever been in love with. Remember the boy I told you so much about? The boy that I secretly loved? As it turns out, it was you. It was you all along, I was just too blind to see it. I turned Chat down over and over again because I was in love with Adrien Agreste. Actually, I _am_ in love with Adrien Agreste. And along the way, I fell in love with Chat Noir, too. I just didn’t see that until it was clear that I didn’t have to choose. That these two people I cared so much about, weren’t, in fact, two people. It was just you, it was only you all along. But as my luck is, I only realized it now, when it’s already too late. Isn’t that funny?” she confessed, finishing her declaration with a quick, bitter laugh.

“Huh.” That was all Adrien managed to say intelligently before sliding down to the metal ground, hitting the floor quite literally.

He could feel his emotions written all over his face but he didn’t care. Disbelief, joy, anger, hope, sorrow and many more he couldn’t name. Overall, he felt overwhelmed, it was all too much. He stared at Ladybug’s feet, without blinking, without making a sound. He was completely zoned out.

This was it. He got what he has been yearning for the past years. His Lady returned his feelings. All he ever wanted. But not quite how he wanted it. He couldn’t decide whether he was ecstatic or subdued about his theories manifesting. Maybe both of them at once.

Ladybug loving him was amazing! His chest felt too tight to contain all the happiness, the affection, the euphoria he was feeling. He spent nights awake in bed, wondering who her mysterious crush could be, only to learn it was him! It was so enthralling, he almost couldn’t believe it. Slightly disturbing, but poetic comedy at its finest. They have a good laugh about how two fucking idiots they were, and their every issue resolves. Life will be unimaginably amazing, loving his Lady and she loving him back.

There was only one tiny mistake in the equation. His former decision. He has given up on this dream, given up on ever holding her in his arms as a lover, and started over, hoping that eventually, he could forget her. Which he didn’t. But during his time with Kagami they grew close, so close he couldn’t have ever imagined what their bond would be like. He cared about his girlfriend a lot, even loved her - in an entirely different way than he loved Ladybug.

Consequently, it wasn’t only decency that told him he had to be faithful. He had committed himself, and he wasn’t the kind of guy who jumped out of that at his first impulse. He loved to be with Kagami, he cherished her company and personality. He couldn’t allow that to be changed by a new piece of information from outside of their relationship, could he?

Ladybug was right, she was too late. They let their chance slip away and in real life, there was no undo function.

“Chaton.” He heard his name, rolling down softly from the girl’s lips. She was squatting in front of him, holding her hand tentatively between the two of them but she didn’t touch him. “Are you alright?”

“I thought you were dating that guy,” Adrien managed, saying the first thing that came into his mind that wasn’t about his mental state. “Your crush. You said you have a boyfriend.”

“It wasn’t him,” Ladybug shook her head, sadness shining in her eyes. “And I don’t have a boyfriend anymore. I tried to start over, to forget, but I couldn’t. Not after figuring out...” she gesticulated at him, shrugging her shoulder sheepishly. “It wouldn’t have been fair to him.”

He understood it perfectly. It was, unpleasantly, a lot like his situation. Their motives were the same for starting their relationships. The only difference seemed to emerge in the progression. Maybe at his Lady’s case breaking up was the sensible thing to do, but he grew so close to his girlfriend. He liked Kagami, he couldn’t do this to her. He couldn’t abandon her at the first inconvenience. He wouldn’t have been able to see her in pain because of his actions. But was he ready to do the same to Ladybug? His warm-hearted, compassionate partner?

He desperately searched his mind for a compromise he knew very well he wouldn’t find.

“I’m sorry, My Lady.” Sorry for breaking your relationship. Your plan to start over. Your heart. “I never meant to… If only I knew it sooner, before Kagami,” Adrien whispered. She could hear him effortlessly, their faces being only inches away.

He was breaking both of their hearts a little but he couldn’t back out. He made his decision, fully aware that there was no turning back, now it was time to face the music.

“It’s alright, Kitty,” Ladybug smiled at him gently, her eyes full of sorrow and warmth. “I know. I was foolish. After the reveal, for a moment I thought I could have you both. Adrien and Chat Noir. But life isn’t like that. It doesn’t give you what you want, it gives you what you need. And for you, that is Kagami. I understand.”

Adrien couldn’t bear the sadness anymore. He pushed himself up to his knees, pulling Ladybug into a tight embrace. Which of them was weeping? Was it both of them? He couldn’t tell. He was only sure about one thing, and that wasn’t knowing with utter certainty that he did the right thing. What he saw brighter than the sun was how wicked it was to break up with someone you have never ever dated in the first place.

* * *

Marinette’s weekend could easily challenge and successfully beat the current medalist on her ‘worst 24 hours of my life’ list. Hanging out with her friends eased the experience somewhat, supplementing as a silver lining in her silver sandwich, but that short pleasant episode was wedged between the Talk with Luka and the Talk with Chat. A foolproof way to kick off her week horribly.

Not like after Saturday night she expected anything else, and on a cognitive level she was fine with how things turned out to be, but emotionally… Well, that was a different matter. She hit rock bottom, so the only way from here was up, wasn’t it?

After the morning’s ordinary struggle other people called waking up and getting ready she was on her way to school, late, as per usual. She stormed into the classroom, only to find her class vibrating excitedly about something Miss Bustier probably just announced. Marinette didn’t notice Juleka’s disapproving stare aimed at her as she took her place to join the excited conversation between Alya and Nino. She only allowed herself one look at Adrien, who seemed about as full of pep as Marinette herself.

“There’s no school tomorrow!” Nino filled her in, looking totally hyped up.

“Someone found a giant wasp’s nest on the yard. The pest control is coming tomorrow, but they say it’s dangerous to be on school grounds while they’re getting rid of the wasps, so school is cancelled,” Alya explained with the same joyful expression her boyfriend was wearing.

“That’s great! I guess I’ll finally have time to sleep for like twelve hours straight,” Marinette contemplated probably the best new she was about to get all week.

“Uh-uh, that’s not happening! Days off are for friends and parties, not sleeping. Besides, both of you could use a little cheering up, so that’s what we are going to do” Alya declared, pointing her finger at Marinette and Adrien.

Marinette blinked at the boy uncomprehendingly. Was something bothering him beside his talk with Ladybug last night? That seemed unlikely but then why was it so visibly hard on him? Didn’t they both agree that settling things as they did is for the best? Didn’t he truly want to stay with Kagami? Was it all nothing but a big, fat mistake? And how did he explain his mood to their friends? Marinette had no idea.

“He says he’s fine but he looked out the window with sad puppy eyes all morning, so we’re not buying it,” Nino answered one of her unspoken questions.

“I’m just tired, that’s all,” Adrien defended, bringing his hand to the nape of his neck.

He sounded just as convincing and sincere as Marinette found Lila’s any breath. Not at all. He was in dire need of some help in subtly redirecting the unwanted attention. So subtle that even he couldn’t notice it. The last thing they needed now was Alya discovering and promulgating their secret identities.

* * *

The rest of the day went uneventfully. Both Marinette and Adrien succeed to muster a less miserable expression, seemingly taking the pair’s attention off of them. They were busy anyway, planning a sleepover at Nino’s place. The rest of his family was out of town, providing a more than perfect opportunity, they emphasized. They didn’t even listen to Adrien’s protest how there is no way his father would allow him to participate. Alya’s eyes shined mischievously, letting the others know she had it all figured out. Marinette didn’t ask about the plan, there was exactly zero percent chance that it would work.

So, Marinette arrived at Nino’s around six o’clock, feeling less than enthusiastic about being anywhere outside her bed. However, maybe her friends were right and a hangout was what she needed. Only God knew that she surely didn’t.

When Nino let her in, the sound of a conversation filtered out of the living room. Alya was rambling about superheroes with, to Marinette’s greatest surprise, Adrien.

The newly arrived girl rooted down on the doorstep of the living room before Nino pushed her towards the couch. Her head kept telling her how fast this situation could escalate from not ideal to irreversibly terrible. Honestly, Marinette was sick and tired of her head. The only things she wanted right now was a break.

“Adrien could come, isn’t it awesome?” Nino enthused, taking Marinette’s bag and throwing it next to the others.

“Yeah, awesome,” Marinette answered, pretending to be optimistic about it. It wasn’t his fault, really, but to have a party with her partner after everything was a little out of her comfort zone. Not to mention her fear, of how fiercely their friends would search for the cause of Adrien’s bad mood. She sure hoped he had a good cover story.

The night started out casually like any would. They were chatting about school, hobbies, nothing too dangerous. Adrien seemed to enjoy himself, his blue mood faded away almost entirely from the excitement of participating in a real sleepover. Sure, he sometimes took a long, longing look at his phone but Marinette couldn’t tell whether he was texting with Kagami or waiting for a message that didn’t come. This was the only reminder of her awful weekend, but it seemed manageable, so Marinette also had a great time, despite her anticipations. They ordered pizza and played video games until they got bored of Nino beating everyone in his own games.

“Okay, we’ve had our fair share of fun, it’s time to progress to the next stop of a sleepover,” Alya proposed, the mischievous shining creeping back into her eyes.

“And what would that be?” Adrien asked unprepared, taking the last bites of the crust on his pizza slice.

“It’s time to spill!” Alya exclaimed, startling the boy. “Open up, Buttercup!”

“I-I have nothing to say. Everything is fine, really!” Adrien tried, putting on his most adorable model smile. He must have not known Alya well enough.

“That’s what I thought,” Alya smacked with her tongue in dissatisfaction. “Nino, would you?”

Nino nodded, went to the kitchen and returned with four shot glasses and a bottle of liquor. He poured out the drinks while looking a little worried about Adrien’s whitening face and amused by their plan at the same time.

“Let’s play a game!” Alya continued gleefully when a shot of liquor was standing before everyone. “It’s called truth or truth. We ask each other questions and who doesn’t answer properly takes a shot.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Adrien said, rubbing his neck. Marinette’s brain had to agree. There were so many risks in this game, they had so much to hide. Secret identities, confessions and true motives. The threat was paralyzing. However, Marinette as a whole person was tired of being scared all the time. She’s had enough of responsibilities and sensible decisions. She was a sixteen-year old girl and she wanted to act like it for only a night.

“Come on, dude, it’s gonna be fun!” Nino supported the idea. “We won’t let you get wasted, promise!”

“Oh, you so can not peer pressuring us into doing this!” Marinette declared. The curiosity about the taste of alcohol piqued her interest.

“Thank you, finally someone is sensible!” Adrien seemed relieved. He shouldn’t have been.

“We’re doing it by our own choice! To _cat_ astrophic decisions!” Marinette toasted before she smirked in a Chat-like manner and drank off her very first shot in one gulp. It was so strong that made her grimace, but it also tasted sweet. It left a funny aftertaste in her mouth but wasn’t explicitly bad.

“Go, girl!” Alya shouted excitedly.

Adrien stared at her, his eyes wide in surprise. He didn’t know but Marinette had two conversations that felt like breakups during the weekend. She was tired of listening to her brain all the time. She considered this night the best occasion to get a little wild and make those bad decisions everyone was complaining about in their 20s.

“What will it be, Buttercup?” Alya asked cockily.

“What was that question again?” Adrien gave in, his stare still lingering on Marinette, who was busy pouring some juice to cover up the aftertaste.

“Why the long face all day?”

“I, uh… I had a fight with a friend. I think.” He was choosing his words carefully, staring into his glass.

“You think?”

“Yeah. But it’s nothing, really,” Adrien apologized shrugging.

“That’s not the right answer,” Alya said teasingly, pointing at his glass. Adrien grimaced, sighed but gulped down his drink. “So?”

“Hey, he took the penalty, he doesn’t have to answer!” Marinette came to the rescue instantly.

“That’s a fair point.” Nino agreed. “How would you like to answer, Marinette?” he bantered.

“Shot me with your best question!” The girl accepted the challenge smirking.

The game went on, questions have been answered and denied, shots have been drunk off, and after a while, Marinette didn’t quite understand why was she so scared of playing at the first place or why was she so anxious all weekend. Sure, her love life lied in ruins but now that didn’t seem like a good enough excuse for feeling miserable.

The laughter just died after one of Nino’s ridiculous answers when Adrien proposed the question quietly, not looking at any of them. “Do you think, it’s possible to be in love with more than one person at once?”

“That wasn’t a proper question!” Marinette protested instantly, sounding tipsy.

“Sorry. So, do you think it’s possible to be in love with more than one person at the same time, Marinette?” he looked directly at the girl as he reframed the question to match the rules.

“I-I don’t think so,” Marinette answered, toying with her glass. “I mean, I once thought that I was in love with more than one people, but it was different. How I loved them, I mean. One of them was like this-” she imitated to pluck sweetly on an air guitar “-while the other was more like this,” she swung her arm in a circle, as they do in rock concerts, to pluck at her guitar again.

Alya and Nino were staring at her unblinkingly, fully convinced that she had spent _way_ too much time with Luka.

“And what did you do?” Adrien asked eagerly, focusing his full attention on the girl.

“Hey, that’s way too many questions for one person! We’re also playing, if you haven’t noticed!” Alya tried to save her clearly drunk best friend.

Marinette didn’t understand her intentions but let the topic sink. She was too happy to think about heartbreak.

“Okay, it’s your turn then!” Adrien handed over the opportunity to the reporter reluctantly.

“Let’s hear one of your secrets!” Alya proposed.

“What, I don’t have secrets!” Adrien protested instantly, laughing awkwardly.

“Everyone has secrets, Buttercup!” Alya said, balancing her chin on the back of her hand in interest.

Marinette hummed approvingly until she remembered she knew his secret. That was her main concern about Adrien being at the party. She couldn’t allow the question to be answered, she had to intervene.

“I do have a secret!” she exclaimed excitedly. “I’m actually-” She felt a kick in her thigh that originated from her purse. It was Tikki, reminding her that it was not a good idea to cover one identity reveal with another. She went pale, she panicked. “I’m actually in love with Adrien!” Marinette was proud of herself for pulling out saving their identities so gracefully. She was sure none of her friends suspected a thing.

As she lifted her head the shining smile started to melt off of her face. Three pair of eyes were staring at her. Nino seemed confused, Alya devastated, Adrien uncomprehending.

“You’re what?” he managed.

“In love with you,” she declared again sweetly, looking puzzled as Alya buried her face into her palms. She looked Adrien in the eye before she went on. “You were the-” she repeated her circular guitar rocking movement “-you were it all along. But I never told you, because it’s a secret. And now it’s too late, isn’t it? That’s actually kind of funny,” she laughed and laid on her back in the middle of the living room.

As her head touched the ground she was fast asleep, not paying any attention to the gaping Adrien.


	8. Clumsy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette has to deal with the consequences of her usual [clumsy](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DvwEcdE-BZt0&sa=D&ust=1595271708628000&usg=AFQjCNF7G0TIfZNYLwdzySLWZV3fhkJ_QQ)ness, aka the aftermath of a drunk sleepover and other inconveniences

Marinette woke to sunshine lingering on her face. At first, everything felt fine. Until she tried to open her eyes. With the slightest movement, her head started to hurt like someone was trying to use a vice to hold it in place. Her stomach didn’t like being awake either, nausea kicked in instantly. She groaned before forcing her eyes open. She was facing an unfamiliar wall, lying on an unfamiliar bed. Did something happen to her during patrol, and someone took her home? It was possible because she didn’t remember much from last night. Oh no, has she been akumatized? But who defeated her? 

Marinette rolled to her back from her side and from this point of view, she recognized the place. She was at Nino’s living room. Oh, right, she came for a sleepover. Adrien was there. They ate pizza and Nino brought out a bottle of liquor. That explained the pain and the blurry memories. Her first hangover hurt, like it should, but she was glad that there was no akumatization involved in her amnesia. 

She tried to sit up and- And forgot instantly what she wanted to do, as she spotted the blond boy sleeping beside her, fairly close, despite the huge size of the pull-out couch. She squeaked, sitting up straight as an arrow, only to fall back onto the bed with a flop. Stars were dancing before her eyes and she felt even sicker than before. As she slowly turned her face to the side to examine, she wasn’t dreaming when she thought she was sleeping in the same bed as Adrien, a green pair of eyes stared back at her from under golden bed-hair. 

“Good morning!” he mumbled, rubbing his face sleepily.

The thought of pulling the blanket over her face suddenly felt very appealing. 

“Good morning!” she managed instead, looking into his eyes.

“I hope you’re feeling better,” Adrien said. The tiniest adorable smile sat on his face.

“Honestly, I can’t tell. I don’t remember much from last night. However, if this is any better I must have had alcohol poisoning before,” she stated faintly. Loud sounds weren’t her cup of tea today. 

“It wasn’t that bad...” he chuckled. 

“Now comes the part when you tell me it wasn’t that bad, I was only claiming to be Jagged Stone himself?” she grimaced. 

“No, really. You had four shots at most. It made you all joyful before you dozed off on the carpet. It was kinda cute,” he smiled at her still. 

“I’m not so surprised that I have that terrible alcohol tolerance,” Marinette remarked. At least he thought she was cute. Not like it would have mattered. “But this is great news, I mustn't have had any time to do something embarrassing before passing out like that,” she said relieved, turning on her back again. 

“You don’t remember anything?” Adrien’s voice was lower than low. 

Oh, God. She must have done something stupid. 

“Not much, after the first shot,” she admitted, massaging her nose bridge. “What did I do?” she asked resigned. It was probably embarrassing but it couldn’t be that bad if she didn’t remember, she reasoned. 

“Well… You gave me advice on a personal issue I had. And after that, you told us a secret.” Adrien remembered clearly uncomfortably. 

Marinette’s heart paused for a second. She couldn’t have told them she was Ladybug. She wouldn’t do that, even if she was totally wasted, would she?

“What secret?” she whispered, turning back to the boy to look him in the eye. Was his face closer to her than before? 

“You said you loved me.” His voice sounded apologetic. 

“Oh, no I didn’t,” Marinette giggled. This had to be a prank. Only, Adrien wouldn’t do that to her. Moreover, he looked very tense himself. “Oh, no. I did.”

The answer was a tiny nod. Marinette felt her blood rushing to her face, accompanied by a minor malfunction of her lungs. She couldn’t believe herself. Her unconscious must have really enjoyed the previous night with Chat if she wanted a redo. 

Marinette swallowed past the lump in her throat before managing. “Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t true?” Adrien stared at her skeptically. Of course, he wouldn’t. “I-I’ve always wanted to tell you, until... But it never really worked out. Life is like this sometimes,” she shrugged. 

“A bitch?” He sounded bitter. He was gazing into her eyes as if trying to decipher her whole soul. 

“Something like that,” Marinette breathed. They were so close. It would have taken almost nothing to close the gap between them. To press their lips together in a passionate kiss. To finally have him all to herself. 

Adrien absent-mindedly licked his lower lip before they both yanked their heads apart and blurted out in the same second. “Kagami!”

“I-I was supposed to meet her for lunch. During her lunch break. At her lunch school. I mean school. I mean, I need to go!” Adrien stammered with red cheeks, looking totally flustered. 

“Adrien!” Marinette got up as the boy was searching for his bag hastily. “Please! I know I messed it up but… Could we pretend this didn’t happen? Could we go back to the way we were before? To being friends?” she asked desperately. She didn’t want to lose him entirely because she couldn’t keep her stupid mouth shut on a stupid drunk sleepover. 

“We can try that,” he said slowly with a small smile on his face, bringing his rush to a pause. “I would really miss being friends with you.”

“I would really miss being friends with you, too.” Marinette smiled back at him. “Have fun at your date!” she added, making the other realize where he was hurrying just a minute ago. 

“Thanks! And you… Take care!” he waved at her sheepishly before slamming the door. Her head ached at the loud noise. Her heart did, too. 

* * *

Adrien took the metro to get to Kagami’s school. Usually, he didn’t like how loud this particular kind of public transportation was but now he didn’t mind. It provided a background noise that helped him think. Because he had much thinking to do. 

Marinette just confessed her love to him. Clearly, she was drunk, but that didn’t change the fact itself. In hindsight, it was pretty obvious. How she always blushed and stuttered around him, how she whispered with Alya when they thought he didn’t see them, how Nino has been trying to convince him to spend more time with the girl alone. He dismissed the idea because he thought she didn’t like being with him that much, given how anxious she always became around him. As it turned out, he couldn’t have been further from the truth. 

The situation was confusing as hell, since… Marinette was dating Luka only three days ago! Wasn’t she in love with him? Adrien remembered her advice from the night before, the one concerning multiple love interests. He realized, if he was the intense one, Luka must have been the gentle tune. But what had happened that made Marinette change her mind? Why did she give up on Luka? She couldn’t have thought she had better chances with him now than before when he was still single. And it wouldn’t have been like Marinette at all to try to break her friends up to get what she wanted. She clearly accepted that he was going to keep dating Kagami. Then what was this all about? 

He also wondered whether Luka knew about Marinette’s feelings towards Adrien. He must have, that made the most sense. Explained Capgras’ power of making you forget the person you cared about the most like a charm. It also scared Adrien. The fact, he played a role in someone getting akumatized. The fact, he meant Marinette so much that Luka didn’t see any other solution than erasing him from her memories. The fact that he was the one Marinette cared about the most. And he couldn’t reciprocate it, could he? That didn’t seem fair. Nowadays, a lot of things in his life didn’t seem fair. 

So, Marinette was in love with him. But did he love her? Besides the obvious ‘no, I am in love with Ladybug’ and ‘no, I am dating Kagami’ he could see a chance of that happening. He has always considered her just a friend but maybe there was more to it. Or at least, there could have been. She was funny, smart, warm-hearted, always going out of her way to help others. She was an everyday Ladybug. 

Which brought him to the second topic of discussion for today. Was she the  _ real  _ Ladybug? He knew he wasn’t supposed to pry about the secret identity of the Guardian, it was more dangerous for him to find out than ever, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the thought. Her confession strangely resembled the one Ladybug provided him with. It contained the same details. She loved him and it was too late for them, which she found funny. Even the phrasing was almost identical, goddammit. Besides, their relationships started and ended about the same time. Only, he has seen Ladybug and Marinette standing side by side when his classmate helped them out as Multimouse. It seemed to stand as an unquestionable argument against his theory. But he had to remind himself that he managed to pull off being Adrien and Chat Noir at the same time. For Ladybug it would have been child's play. So, could Marinette be his Lady? Was he this lucky? Was he this unfortunate? Would this change anything or nothing at all in the status-quo? He had to believe the answer for all of these questions was ‘no’, there was no other way. He was committed. Ladybug loving him and Marinette loving him couldn’t change that. But both of them as the same person? 

Falling in love with someone once could be an accident. Falling in love with another someone at the same time could be a mistake. But falling in love with the same person twice had to be fate. Luckily, Marinette was just a friend. 

* * *

The next day at school was mostly fine, according to the circumstances. The morning lessons were somewhat awkward in Marinette’s experience, but by lunchtime, everything was almost back to normal with Adrien. Who thought, being friends was more important than a bad-timed confession? 

Before the classes started in the afternoon Marinette ran up to Rose’s desk by habit ,  to check on how their rehearsal went last night. If Juleka’s eyes were anything to go by, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. 

“We won’t be needing a new design, for a while,” Rose suggested apologetically. “Don’t worry, Juleka isn’t really mad at you, she’s just supporting her brother,” she added, walking back Marinette to her desk. 

“We didn’t really talk since Saturday. Do you think, I should check on him?” Marinette asked, chewing on her lower lip worriedly. 

“No! Not yet.” Rose patted her on her shoulder sympathetically and gave her a small smile before going back to her place. 

Marinette supposed this was the reason why you were advised not to date a classmate, or a close relative of your friend in class whose band you designed for for that matter. 

* * *

During the following weekend, Marinette realized how much free time she acquired suddenly. Without meeting Luka, going to rehearsals, designing for Kitty Section, making a 50th gift for Adrien, or daydreaming about him, it seemed that she had all the time in the world. A thing, she would have strongly advised against having. 

She spent Friday night at Alya’s but didn’t stick around for the rest of the weekend, leaving the lovebirds the alone time they claimed they were fine without. On Saturday she stayed in her room, desperately trying to design something. Not a new mask, not light blue mittens, not even a beret. Finally, she decided to use her time reasonably and tried to brew some spare potion for the kwamis’ powered up transformation on the electric stove she bought for this purpose. 

To say her mind was at ease and she has found her inner peace during the last days would have been a lie, but she managed. She only had to shove her wandering thoughts about Adrien to the back of her mind like a dozen times. That was nothing. She wasn’t stressed out about Luka’s pain or the fact that she put Alya in grave danger by giving her back the fox Miraculous or the pressing matter of finding new part-time heroes, finally translating the whole Miraculous book and defeating Hawkmoth and Mayura who got more powerful day by day, either. None of that nonsense concerned her, so she was doing beautifully, thank you very much. 

Her potion making was disturbed by the news of Hawkmoth’s brand new akuma and its loyal advisor, a sentimonster who seemed to provide Marinette company for Saturday night. The girl, still a bit lost in thought didn’t give it much attention, transformed and went after the gardener on rampage. 

It took more time for her than usual to solve the puzzle that involved deceiving both the bystanders and the akuma to defeat it but they succeeded, as always. They pound it but didn’t have much time to talk, Chat had places to be. 

Ladybug was on her way home, almost at their house, when she noticed the out of place sound of sirens. She detransformed at a nearby alley and rushed in the direction of the noise. She was one street down when she noticed the fire truck in front of the bakery. Her heart jumped to her throat as she ran to the house, awfully aware of the smoke stripe circling from the direction of her room. 

“Marinette!” her parents exclaimed in relief as they spotted her on the sidewalk, pulling her into a tight hug. 

“What happened? Is everyone okay? Is something on fire?” she wanted to know when they let her go. 

“It’s alright now, dear, everyone’s safe. The fire brigade looks for anything dangerous but after that, we can go back,” her mother soothed her immediately.

“We were so worried, Marinette! We thought you were home but you weren’t in your room! You can’t just disappear without any of us knowing! What would have happened if you were still at your room?!” her father cried, pulling her into his huge arms again. 

“I’m sorry, Papa! I went to have ice cream with Alya, I must have forgotten to mention,” she lied guiltily. “But what caused the fire?”

“They don’t know yet. It could have been a free wire, or-” her mom started, but at that minute the bakery’s door opened and firemen stepped out, to consult her parents. One of them was carrying a black, burned electric stove. 

Marinette went pale with the realization. She must have forgotten to switch it off before she departed to save the city once again. But this meant that the fire was in her room. Where she kept everything that was important to her. Not just her laptop, her designs and ready pieces, the Miracle Box, too. 

“Is it safe to go in?” she questioned one of the firemen anxiously. She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence, when he said she was allowed back in she started to the stairs. She was taking them by two, racing to her room. 

When she entered the apartment she could feel the smoke that filled the living room creeping into her lungs but she didn’t bother opening a window. She wanted to push up her trapdoor to have a good look at the damage but it wasn’t there. 

Marinette stood on the top of the stairs and glared at the ruins. Her eyes filled with tears as she took in the landscape. The back of her room wasn’t so bad, half of her desk was surprisingly untouched. The other side of the room on the other hand, where the electric stove stood, went up in flames. She could make out the furniture, it didn’t burn down to the ground but everything was strongly damaged. Her chaise was no longer pink, it burned down and stood as a black spot on display. The part of the walls that weren’t burnt had soot stripes on them. The pictures from them simply disappeared. The big chest where she kept Adrien’s birthday gifts for the foreseeable future collapsed, burying the blackened packages underneath it. 

Marinette, still in shock, slowly regaining the control over her body, hurried to the mostly untouched part of the room, and with a big relieved sigh fished out the unharmed safe of the Miracle Box from among her other stuff. She grabbed it and put it in her backpack before she took a last shattered look at her once beautiful home and carried her package downstairs, to wait for her parents there. She was too shocked and tired to even freak out.

She felt numb as her brain automatically switched into problem-solving mode and contemplated what needed to be done. First, her parents needed to be calmed but foremost, she had to explain, why had her “chemistry homework” involved brewing unidentified ingredients on an unattended electric stove.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are interested in reading or writing fanfiction and you are looking for a community of like-minded and supportive people, then come and join the [Miraculous Fanworks Discord](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) server!


	9. Getaway Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug finally asking and accepting help from those she trusts? Not as unlikely as you might think.  
> Or you could say, after the drama in Marinette's personal life it's time to tend to superhero duties, to plot and to recruit new and recycled allies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Getaway Green](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_-RCBDr8Ng)  
> Yes, just plainly like this. It isn't a part of a sentence. (There aren't so many songs left on the album, so my options are limited.)
> 
> This chapter contains a Hungarian sentence, the translation can be found in the endnotes.

[I really need your help. Can I go over?]

Adrien was staring at his phone. This was Ladybug’s first message since their Talk last weekend. It was Sunday night. 

He abandoned his Chinese exercise and texted her his address.

“Ladybug wants my help. Do you think there’s something wrong?” he asked Plagg anxiously, who was playing Animal Crossing on the console. The kwami found hilarious how all his online animal friends thought he was a human. Also, he never would have admitted it, but he liked to create something sometimes when he missed Tikki’s company. 

“How would I know?” the kwami of destruction and not mind reading remarked. 

“It’s just that she has never needed my help before.” Adrien walked to the window to swing it open for the soon arriving guest. He stared out to the black sky, enjoying the chill air on his face. “Maybe she needs Adrien’s help. With physics homework or learning to play the piano.”

“Or she finally understood, that being a team means sharing the responsibilities and asking for help when you realize you can’t do two superhero-related jobs all alone,” Plagg supplied. “Or she ran out of camembert for her midnight baking session. In this case, I hope you know what our answer is,” he added for good measure.

“Pff, like Ladybug would need anyone’s help with that. I’m _paw_ sitive, she is perfectly capable of handling anything on her own,” Adrien said walking back to his desk, amused by even the idea that his strong, independent, talented partner would need _his_ help for superhero duties. 

“Whatever you say, kid.” Plagg gave up, plugging in his miniature earphones and going back to his game while murmuring something that sounded like ‘I’m just a creature with godly powers, who has been lending those powers for thousands of years, how would I know what handling those powers is like?’. 

Adrien looked around the room but didn’t find anything that was out of place and should have been corrected before his Lady’s arrival, so he went back to his studies. His fruitless work - he maybe, just maybe couldn't stop thinking about Ladybug and her possible connection to his classmate - has been disturbed by a soft knock on his window. 

“Can I come in?” Ladybug’s voice came from said window. 

“Sure. What can I help you with on this late hour, my Lady?” Adrien asked in a light tone he only managed as Chat Noir while turning in his office chair to face his partner. She was squatting on the windowsill, pressing a round red item to her chest. She looked exhausted and depressed. 

“I need a new hiding spot for the Miracle Box. My place isn’t ideal right now, so I’d really appreciate if you could take care of it for a while. I know this is much to ask from you, it’s not your responsibility, but I didn’t know what else I could do. It will only be a few weeks, I promise,” Ladybug got down to facts, stepping into the room. She looked up at him from under her lashes warily waiting for his answer which only made the circles sitting around her eyes more visible. 

“Why would you think it’s too much to ask for? Of course, I’ll help you! We’re partners, after all,” he answered, standing up from his chair. He grinned cheerily while a pleasant wave of surprise washed over him. Plagg was right, Ladybug needed Chat’s help. She trusted him to the point to ask him to babysit the Miraculouses. His heart fluttered with happiness. 

“We are, but as the Guardian, the Miraculouses are only my concern. I can’t ask you to take this burden to yourself because I can’t fulfil my job properly. You have enough on your plate already,” the girl said uncomfortably.

“That’s nonsense, I’m always here if you need me,” Adrien frowned. “But usually you don’t, you’re doing perfectly fine even without my help,” he shrugged, meaning it as an encouragement.

“Adrien, that’s so not true. I’m a disaster of a Guardian!” Ladybug cried, lumping down on the couch and burying her face into her palms, startling the boy. 

“Why would you say that, you’re a great Guardian!” he insisted, taking a place next to her.

“Yeah, you really think so? Then say one thing that I did right since Master Fu retired, because all I see is mistakes followed by bigger mistakes,” Ladybug spitted bitterly, peering up at him from between her fingers. 

“For starters, you saved Paris like a zillion times-” Adrien started, only to be cut out by the girl. 

“That was Ladybug, not the Guardian!” she insisted stubbornly. 

“But you are Ladybug and the Guardian. How would that be any different?” he asked, not understanding her outburst. 

“As Ladybug, I only need to show up, fight the villain, use my Lucky Charm, figure out a way to defeat our enemy and restore everything to normal. That’s easy!” She declared, gesticulating with her hands to channel her overflowing emotions. Adrien would like to disagree. Being Mr Bug has taught him enough to know that it wasn’t, in fact, easy. Still, he stayed silent and listened to his partner attentively. “As the Guardian, I’m supposed to keep an eye on the bigger picture. I need to forge a plan to systematically defeat Hawkmoth, to prepare the potions we need for the upgraded transformations, to recruit new allies, to ensure their identities are kept secret! On the contrary, what I did caused all of our heroes’ identities to go viral. After that, I made you reveal yourself and recruited Alya again, endangering her safety, because I was too all over the place to notice the mistake I was making. We aren’t any closer to finding Hawkmoth than we were before and I have almost destroyed the whole Miracle Box because I was so preoccupied with my own problems,” she concluded her anxious rambling by finally taking a breath.

“Okay, now slow down! Everything is alright,” Adrien soothed her, placing a comforting hand on her trembling shoulder. Her words were bouncing around in his brain, each demanding all of his attention. He swept them away to focus on Ladybug. “You don’t have to deal with all of this alone. I’m here, I will help you.” Ladybug opened her mouth to protest but he quickly continued. “I want to help you. Please, let me help you!”

The superheroine’s blue eyes shined with desperation and disbelief. Adrien wanted nothing more than to erase all of her doubts. She seemed immensely stressed, hopeless and tired. He had to make those feelings go away, to show her how valuable, how capable she really was. 

He only now realized, how right Plagg actually has been. It didn’t matter, how resourceful or hard-working his Lady was, even she couldn’t juggle Ladybug’s and the Guardian’s responsibilities while leading a normal civilian life at the same time. It was all too much. It would have been too much even without the interlude of the identity reveal and forced confessions and broken hearts and missed chances. And the list could have gone on, concerning her sudden break-up with her mystery boy, which would have meant, if Ladybug really was Marinette, that- No, he wasn’t going back there. 

“You really don’t have to, it’s not your concern,” Ladybug murmured uncertainly, looking down at her hands nestled in her lap. 

“But you are. And I want to help you. Please, let me help!” he repeated, taking her hands in his. “I know, you think you have to do this alone, but that’s not true. Even if it’s guardian-duty, I’m your partner. And partners are for exactly these kinds of situations. Being a team doesn’t only mean fighting side by side, it also means trusting each other outside of battle and accepting help when things get rough. I know, you can handle your problems alone but the point is, you don’t have to. Let me help!”

Their eyes met, ocean blue and forest green, and Adrien felt her breath calm, her shoulders relax while he was talking to her, massaging circles onto the back of her hand unconsciously. 

“Okay,” she whispered, burying her head to his shoulder. Adrien ran his palm soothingly on her back while hugging her one-sidedly. Her hair smelled as it always did, vanilla and lotus (as Adrien learned after smelling perfume magazines for weeks, searching for the scent) but it had a new component, something bitter. Was it smoke?

“Do you want to tell me what happened with the Miracle Box?” he asked kindly after a pause. 

“Better not. It would presumably compromise my identity,” she answered in a sad tone. 

“Alright, then,” he squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. 

However, Ladybug most likely understood it as her sign to finish the embrace, because she pulled away from him, cheeks slightly pink. 

“So, how do you plan we redeem everything?” she looked at him with worry and anticipation but most definitely with a small smile on her lips. 

“A few new part-time heroes would come in handy,” Adrien supplied. 

“It sure would. Fighting akumas alongside sentimonsters gets harder and harder for just the two of us.”

“Then we’ll figure out who we could recruit. How did you do it by now? How did you decide who to trust with a Miraculous?” As he was thinking about it, it seemed fairly strange, that all of their fellow heroes were his classmates or otherwise strongly related to their group of friends. As if, Ladybug herself would have been part of that group of friends too…

“Well, it sort of happened along the way. I knew Alya, from the Ladyblog of course, Nino was already trying to save her when I gave him the Miraculous and Master Fu suggested choosing a few other wielders,” she said seemingly casually, lulling Adrien’s suspicions. 

“That doesn’t help much. But worry not, Bugaboo, we’ll figure it out,” he smiled at her wholeheartedly. “Patrol tomorrow? We can work out the details there. It’s getting pretty late.”

“Tomorrow sounds great,” she smiled back at him, making his stomach flutter. “Do you have a place to hide the Miracle Box?” she asked already standing, pointing at the red and black dotted box on the couch. 

“Plenty _purr_ fect hiding places, My Lady!” he winked at her while accompanying her to the window. Ladybug rolled her eyes at his pun while giggling simultaneously. He could have gotten used to this reaction. 

“See you tomorrow!” she said her goodbye, before seemingly making up her mind and leaning close to him to plant a soft kiss onto his cheek. “Thank you, Chaton! For everything. You are the best partner I could have ever asked for.”

In the next moment, she was holding onto her yo-yo, sweeping in the cold night air above the Parisian streets. 

Adrien kept thinking long and hard about their conversation and possible plans for the future while searching for a hiding place for the box. When he finally found it and went to sleep still lost in thoughts he didn’t bother checking his phone. He had unread messages from Kagami. 

* * *

Arriving at school the next day Adrien was welcomed by an unfamiliar view. Marinette was already sitting in her seat, chatting with Alya. 

“Good morning!” he greeted them.

“Good morning, Adrien!” 

“Marinette, are you travelling somewhere?” he asked taking his place, because next to the girl on the aisle between the benches lay a sports bag. 

“No, nothing like that. Actually, there was an accident at home, so Alya’s lending me a few stuff until we’re able to repurchase everything.” Marinette looked exhausted from only thinking about it.

“What kind of accident?” Adrien asked surprised. 

“Marinette set their whole house on fire on Saturday while cooking something in her room on an electric stove. Can you believe it?” Alya explained, with an expression between frowning and laughing. 

“Not the whole house, just part of my room,” Marinette corrected, seeing the dismay in the boy’s face. “It isn’t that bad but it needs renovation. Unfortunately, most of my wardrobe vanished in the fire but Alya was kind enough to lend me a few pieces,” she stated with a faint smile.

“That’s the least I could do after you weren’t willing to stay at my place for a few weeks until you get back your room. May I remind you that sleeping on the couch isn’t exactly relaxing?” Alya said disapprovingly.

Adrien bit back his comment about how Marinette could move to his house too if she needed a place to crash. He wasn’t sure, whether his father, Kagami or Marinette would have been delighted by his idea. 

“That’s crazy! Is everyone alright?” he settled finally. 

“Physically yes, but Marinette’s parents were really freaked out. Honestly, I can’t blame them. They thought Marinette was home and panicked when they couldn’t find her,” Alya said.

“Don’t even mention it, please, I feel terrible about it!” Marinette buried her face into her palms.

“I mean, you probably should,” Nino chimed in as he arrived. “Your parents would have understood that you wanted to talk to Luka, you shouldn’t have to sneak out and lie to them that you were with Alya.”

“Yes, Nino’s right about that. I almost snapped talking to them. And considering you didn’t even manage to talk with him...” Alya shook her head dismissively. 

Marinette lay on her desk, her forehead touching the tabletop. “You’re right, I’ll never do it again,” she grumbled into the wood resignedly. 

“Hey, so you were at Marinette’s yesterday?” Adrien asked trying to connect to his friends. 

“Of course, we were helping to clean the ruins and sort things out,” Nino stated as if it would have been self-explanatory. 

“Well, I could have helped, too. If only you had mentioned it,” Adrien said uncertainly. 

“Er- I didn’t want to bother you. I’m sure you had better things to do on a Sunday,” Marinette answered seemingly flustered. 

“Still, I would have gladly helped. That’s what friends do. And we’re friend, aren’t we?” 

It took such a long time for them to become what they were now. Adrien didn’t want to lose it over whatever happened between the two of them. Still, he felt like he was on his way as it was evident, he wasn’t invited to help on purpose. And it hurt because stopping being friends was the very thing they agreed on they wouldn’t do. 

However, if he gave way to his instincts and dared to assume Marinette was behind the red mask of Paris’ superheroine all along, it made more sense. After all, she said that uncovering the details of why the Miracle Box needed to be relocated would do the same with her identity. Maybe this was the real reason why Marinette didn’t want him there.

“Of course, we are! I didn’t think it would mean so much to you. I promise you’ll be the first one I notify if I need help with cleaning out after a fire ever again,” Marinette flashed a tired but bright smile at him. 

Miss Bustier walked in to start the lecture so the boys were forced to face her. Adrien toyed with his pen while thinking about how Marinette’s offer seemed to contain no depth as a situation like that to come again was pretty unlikely. Just like the time Ladybug promised to never make him reveal his identity again. 

And here he was, mulling on the matter of Ladybug’s identity again, unconsciously collecting evidence to support his theory. But what could he do? The parallelism was threatening to put out his eyes. Precaution and rationality thrown aside, he had to get to the bottom of this. Uncertainty and suspicions were worse than a revealed identity, more threatening to their partnership, or so he presumed. 

Although he couldn’t go up to her and propose the question outright. He didn’t want to rob Ladybug of the choice of revealing herself, so he had to be subtle. He could do that, couldn’t he? All he needed to do was figure out a plan to confirm his statements and if he was right, guide the girl by gently nudges in the right direction. If he was wrong, they’d be back at the starting point, no harm done. A perfect plan.

Adrien didn’t stop to contemplate, what conforming his theory would exactly mean concerning his romantic relationship.

* * *

“Do you have someone in mind for the Miraculouses?” Ladybug asked.

She and Chat Noir were laying on a rooftop, legs dangling from the edge of the building, gazing up at the shining stars above Paris. 

“Most of my classmates are loyal and can keep a secret, I’d dare to trust them with the Miraculouses,” Adrien answered considerately.

“I trust your judgment, Chaton!” She really did, regardless of the fact that her first instinct also always led to the people in question. 

Since yesterday when Ladybug accepted Adrien’s help with picking out their new helpers, she was desperately trying to work out a plan to conceal even the shadow of suspicion that she belonged to his class. Which seemed pretty difficult to accomplish, considering they were after trustworthy people they most likely knew from their civilian life. 

Honestly, suddenly it didn’t seem like such a bad idea to reveal her identity. After all, if they were going to share the responsibility of being the Guardian, he deserved to know; not to mention how tired she was of keeping secrets from everyone. She was already lying to her parents and friends about her whereabouts during patrols and akuma attacks, as she was reminded of earlier that day. She needed a partner who she could let in on the truth before it tore her apart completely. Unfortunately, she felt the uncontrollable need to consult Tikki beforehand because acting on her impulses didn’t really work out in the last couple weeks. Or was that overthinking that made everything hard and messy? She had to think it through in the calm of her living room before answering such questions.

“But remind me please, who exactly belongs to this class of yours?” Marinette tried to play it cool.

“As far as those go who never hold a Miraculous before, there are Ivan and Mylén for example. Just like almost everyone else in the class, they have been akumatized before, but they became much more confident and daring since then, defying Hawkmoth when they got a chance. In my humble opinion, they are fit for the job,” Adrien detailed his suggestion.

“When was anything humble about you, Chaton?” Ladybug giggled.

“You wound me, My Lady!” he bantered before sitting up at the roof and looking at her in all seriousness. “What do you think of them?”

“If you trust them, they seem fine by me.” Marinette really hated how she had to constantly walk the fine line of not exactly lying but not speaking openly either. Chat deserved so much more than this. “What do you say, if we give them the mouse and the bull Miraculouses? Those work well with each other.”

“I thought we are reserving the mouse for Marinette. She did spectacularly with it last time, you should have seen it!” Adrien said with a strange edge in his voice that almost sounded like a call out. “Your only concern regarding her was how I knew her identity. It’s lucky we don’t need to worry about that anymore,” he added with a smirk. 

“You’re right, she was brilliant. That’s exactly the reason why I planned to give her a more powerful Miraculous, the turtle,” Ladybug looked him in the eye with an innocent smile, sitting up next to him. She sure hoped they wouldn’t need the turtle Miraculous anytime soon as this was the best idea she could come up with to protect her identity. 

“You did?” Chat looked at her, mouth open. 

“Of course! It’d be such a shame to neglect her talent, don’t you think?” she shrugged, a smug smile lurking in the corner of her lip. 

“Yes, we can’t ignore that, even if she and I personally aren’t at the best of terms now,” he agreed with a barely noticeable mischievous glint in his eye, looking recomposed.

“You’re… not?” Marinette managed, flabbergasted by the information.

“We used to be good friends but she seems to distrust me lately. She asked for the help of all of our friends but didn’t want mine,” Chat mulled, keeping his voice even.

“I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way,” Ladybug tried to cut in without any luck.

“It may be because she involuntarily admitted liking me, although I thought we agreed to let that slide. It all happened after she broke up with her boyfriend who turned into Capgras. That was a busy weekend for sure, two important girls in my life confessing their love for me. What a _funny_ coincidence,” Chat mused while closely monitoring his partner’s features.

“I thought _we_ agreed to let that slide,” Ladybug said, rolling her eyes in an effort to keep her composure. He was really making it hard for her. “Poor girl, getting her heart broken twice in a few days. I should probably check on her to prevent any possible akumatization. Unless, she didn’t get her heart broken twice because you like her back.” She almost felt the thin ice crack under her feet that she was walking on. 

“I’m dating Kagami,” he shrugged which when examined closely wasn’t exactly a _no_. “Anyway, I have a couple more ideas for new heroes. Let me break it down for you,” he swept the conversation under the rug by concentrating on work, a much too familiar tactic for Marinette for preventing discussing something that hit a little too close to home. 

In the next minutes, they agreed on the new distribution of the Miraculouses. Rose would get the pig, Juleka inherited Sass while the fox Miraculous’ new holder would be Nathaniel. Ladybug let Chat explain, why they were suitable to take over the jewels from their predecessors and felt ashamed by being surprised at his thought-through gameplan. Chat, who while fighting has always been joking at inappropriate times, seemed to take helping her quite seriously. Now thinking back, she could have saved herself a lot of sleepless nights by trusting him and asking for his help sooner. 

“Anything to add, my Lady?” he concluded his plans. 

“I was just thinking, how unfair it is that we can’t ask help from those who have already proven themselves to be a trustworthy ally, like Rena Rouge and Carapace,” Ladybug said, supporting her chin on her palm.

Chat seemed to consider the topic, playing with his leather tail before tentatively asking. “What if we could?”

“Are you suggesting that we-” Ladybug stopped for a second to articulate the concept.

“Give them a different Miraculous,” they finished the train of thought in unison.

Chat peered at her sideways to read her emotions about the proposition. “Do you think it could work?”

“I’m not saying it hasn't crossed my mind before but I always considered it way too dangerous. However, they certainly have more experience than our newly selected allies which would come really handy. Maybe we should test, whether they are recognizable in their new suites before they fight alongside us against a real enemy,” Marinette presented her scheme. 

“Safety first,” Chat agreed, grinning widely. “What about the distribution?”

“I could see Alya with the bee Miraculous,” the girl nodded approvingly to her own idea. 

“We could give the dog to Nino,” Chat continued the strategising. “And we could repurpose the dragon with Max.”

“Do you think, Kim would mind wielding the rooster? And maybe we could trust Kagami with the-” Ladybug continued keenly only to being put the extinguisher on by her partner.

“I don’t want her in on the new team. It’s safer for her that way. Besides, she hardly has time for anything in her schedule, let alone climbing rooftops as a superhero.” His voice sounded determined, like he would have thought about this possibility earlier and reached a conclusion.

“Oh, okay,” Ladybug yielded before the protective boyfriend. “Then that’s it.” Chat has already opened his mouth to say something so she continued with the answer to his unannounced question. “After being Queen Wasp, I’m not comfortable with lending Chloé a Miraculous again, probably ever. As for Luka, last time we spoke we didn’t part on exactly friendly terms. I doubt he would be willing to help out Ladybug after that.”

“Then that’s it,” Adrien nodded at their finalized strategy before resuming to propose an additional idea. “I know, in the past, you have only been recruiting our helpers on the _spot_ but if we want to step up our game, I think it would be useful to seek them out in advance.”

“You’re right, it’s much easier to explain everything to them if meanwhile we aren’t in a rush to save the city,” Ladybug acknowledged the proposal. Truthfully, it seemed so self-explanatory she wondered how she missed it by this time. 

“Does this mean we get to hang out all week, recruiting everyone?” Chat sounded way too excited for the horrendous amount of work they were taking on their shoulders.

“Maybe next week too,” Ladybug smiled at him while standing up and stretching out her limbs, getting ready for departure. “Oh, only one more addition. We need to speak with Alix about her watch.”

* * *

The week flew by in an instant. It was no wonder, as Marinette spent every wake minute planning, cornering her classmates in abandoned alleyways and presenting them their pre-elected Miraculouses. To her greatest relief, by this time all of them accepted the task, being keen on helping out the main duo. 

Juleka acted shy about the offer first, not believing she should walk in the footsteps of her brother but by the end of her training session with Ladybug, Chat Noir and Rose - or as Juleka knew her, Princess Piglet - she seemed convinced that she could live up to the expectations. The following day the duo trained Mylén and Ivan, who demonstrated the good synergy that was anticipated from them, despite being seemingly unaware of each other’s identities. 

Today Ladybug was scaling the buildings of the city in the company of their new dog Miraculous wielder - Doog Boy - who seemed very enthusiastic about lending his helping paw once again, after almost two months of hiatus. 

The heroes came to a stop on a roof near Françoise Dupont to wait for Chat Noir and his freshly recruited companion. Since the plan for this training session was mainly to test their hypothesis about the effectiveness of switching up the magic jewels to protect their friends’ identity, they wanted to make a public appearance. So, unlike the previous days, they chose a training location on a more frequented spot in Paris. 

“Let me introduce you to Pres Bee!” Chat Noir announced as the two superheroes dropped down on the meeting spot.

“It’s nice to meet you again, Ladybug! Hi, Nino!” Alya welcomed them with a wide smile.

“Babe, you’re not supposed to know!” Nino whined.

“Oh, come on! You act like I wouldn’t have figured you out the first time you were Carapace, when I didn’t even expect it to be you!” Alya rolled her eyes playfully. 

“Well, this isn’t the end of the world,” Ladybug decided, seemingly optimistic. “Let’s test, whether it’s also this obvious to anybody else.”

Marinette carefully mustered her friends’ appearance as all of them bolted down to the street to mingle with the crowd, simulating that they had their reasons for appearing. Nino’s and Alya’s hero outfits didn’t contain a detail that resembled their previous superhero personas and the hoods and masks covered their face enough to make them securely unidentifiable in her opinion. The passers-by behaviour only backed up this theory. While the new heroes were welcomed by a lively crowd, Chat Noir sneaked up to her.

“It’s going to be fine. No one’s going to be the wiser,” he leaned in to whisper in her ear, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. 

“I hope so!” she smiled up at him gleefully. 

Once they were absolutely convinced, their little switching trick worked out, the heroes were about to leave the streets, taking the rest of their practice to somewhere more private, when a familiar jingle echoed in their ears. 

“The superheroes of Paris, what an honour! Please, be my guests!” André said as he cycled in front of them on his mobile ice cream stand. 

“It’s very nice of you sir, but we really shouldn’t!” Marinette tried to ditch the offer but the man was already scooping his magical treat for sweethearts and the next second he handed two scoops of ice cream to the surprised girl.

“Blackberry and mint, just as you like it!” 

“Thank you!” the flushing Ladybug managed to mumble out, accepting the treat out of politeness. 

“And blueberry and raspberry for the gentleman!” André declared, arranging said flavours on another cone. 

“Thank you sir!” Chat Noir accepted the ice cream happily. 

While André supplied their new partners with their own personalized treats, the duo walked away to sit on the rocks that lined the Seine. 

“Why are you looking at me like that? A little fun never hurt anyone. And after all, it’s just ice cream,” Chat shrugged, answering Ladybug’s persistent gaze. She sure as hell wasn’t trying to decipher whether the boy’s blueberry scoop reminded her of her own, or Kagami’s hair. 

“Yeah, it’s just ice cream.” 

They sat in silence for a while, looking at the river, eating their sweets, before Ladybug took a determined deep breath and lifted her gaze to her partner. They were alone in perfect peace and she had informed Tikki beforehand. This was her opportunity to tell Adrien who she really was. She listed every reason in her head for one last time, that told her this was a good idea despite being the Guardian before she looked back at the treat in her hand and went for it.

“I think I should tell you something,” she started, scaping the top half of her second scoop of ice cream. “First of all, I’m really grateful for all your help, I don’t know how could I do this without you, or why did I think I needed to. In retrospect, it feels stupid,” she said, lifting her gaze to meet Chat’s who was looking at her in interest.

“Of course, that’s what partners are for,” he answered lightly, clearly not registering her seriousness. 

“No, I mean, you’re always there for me. Even if I mess up or hurt you or make stupid mistakes. You somehow always know what to say and do to help me, and I’m not sure if I deserve it but I truly appreciate it.” Ladybug once again forced herself to take a calming breath. “However, lately I wasn’t really acting like I would. I’ve been rigid and selfish but the more I think about it the more obvious it becomes how I should have shown my trust in you sooner. We’re in this together and I know I can’t do this alone. I need you, Chat! I can’t allow my fears to separate us any longer. So, I need to tell you-”

“Ladybug, we have a problem!” Press Bee ran up to them, not even noticing what she was interrupting.

“I’m sure it can wait a little. We were actually-” Ladybug started before Alya pushed a phone into her face. It was an akuma. Of course, it was an akuma. 

“We’ll continue after we defeated that akuma, my Lady. Don’t forget what you wanted to say,” Chat said playfully, standing up to stretch out his limbs before extending his baton and starting in the direction of the Eiffel tower. 

Marinette didn’t want to believe him. She was practically in the middle of revealing her identity and Adrien skedaddled to the first news of an akuma like they would have been discussing something entirely meaningless. Did this mean, in the end, he didn’t want to know who she was? 

She contemplated his reaction as she followed him with the rest of the group half-heartedly. Akumas really had the bad habit of appearing at the most inappropriate times. She felt like the universe was messing with her again, interfering when she finally made her decision. But it didn’t matter. She was going to have this conversation with her partner today, tomorrow, or the day after that. She at least needed to hear it from him openly, that he didn't care anymore who she was behind the mask. 

Arriving at the tower the four heroes sought shelter to examine the situation from afar. It truly was a sight to take in. Not because the akuma has done much damage to the landscape or the people of Paris, arsy-versy. Everyone seemed rather peaceful which was odd, considering they were experiencing an attack. The passers-by went about their day as usual, hurrying from one place to the other. There were tourists standing and chatting calmly near a huge figure in an intendedly scary costume that consisted of a carved mask and a coat made of wool. It was most likely a sentimonster but instead of scaring people to death, it lay undisturbed on its side on the square. Apart from the figure the only unusual thing, that made the heroes realize that this was, in fact, the place of an akuma attack, was the fact, that they couldn’t understand anyone. The Parisians, just like all of the tourists, were speaking some kind of foreign language, making it impossible to understand them. 

“That’s our man!” Doog Boy pointed to a man talking with someone next to the sentimonster. His extravagant red, white and green clothes were the only thing that gave away his identity, otherwise he wasn’t particularly threatening. 

“Let’s go, get him! We need to find out where the akuma is hiding,” Ladybug said jumping out of their cover. 

The heroes ran in the direction of the man, wielding their weapons but he only drew away his attention from the woman standing beside him to look at them uncomprehendingly. He didn’t defend. He didn’t attack. 

As they came closer the akuma still wasn’t moving, making them to come into a halt in a few meters distance from him. They couldn’t ambush a man who had no intention of fighting them, could they? Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a confused look as the man seemingly got bored of them and turned back to his partner. 

“Hát nem sokkal jobb így? A fene akar csak azért elmenni külföldre, hogy aztán senkihez nem tudjon egy szót is szólni. Csak az az idegesítő pasas ne kiabálna folyamatosan, megőrjít,”* he said, bringing one hand to his temple as if soothing a headache. 

“Okay, this is definitely strange,” Ladybug confirmed. “I guess it’s time for a _Lucky charm!_ ” she exclaimed and threw her yo-yo in the air. When the magic has taken effect she was holding a theatre knife in her hands. 

Suddenly, the air was filled with red smoke for a minute before it vaporized and when Ladybug wanted to ask _“What am I supposed to do with this?”_ , the words didn’t really came out how she intended. They meant what she wanted to vocalize and she understood them perfectly but they weren’t french words. 

_“Ladybug, you just- Okay, this is bizarre,”_ Chat said on the same unknown language, visibly flabbergasted by the experience of speaking words he wasn’t supposed to know. 

_“My job here is done, so where were we?”_ tha akuma said casually turning back to the woman, ignoring the presence of the heroes altogether. 

Ladybug took a look at the woman who seemed to be ill at ease by the whole situation when her form lit up with the familiar, ladybug-dotted pattern, right before the knife she was holding did the same. Oh no. Oh no no no. This wasn’t good. 

_“So, what do we do?”_ Press Bee asked, looking just as helpless as the others. They gathered in a group not far from their enemy(?) who seemed to pay no mind to their existence. 

_“Ugh, I don’t know. Do you think ancient magic can break? Because it practically just said…”_ Ladybug swallowed through the lump in her throat. This Lucky Charm was utterly useless, painting a plan that was actually worse than what she had to do to Luka. _“It wants me to threaten that innocent woman because she seems to be important for the akuma,”_ she whispered to the others with desperation in her eyes. 

_“That can’t be our only option,”_ Chat muttered pale. 

_“I think we can fight him without the Lucky Charm, too,”_ Doog Boy mustered their foe concerned. 

_“No, you don’t understand. The Lucky Charm marks out the path we need to follow if we want to win. It’s not optional whether we use it or not. To this day we have never won without it,”_ Ladybug said panicked. 

There was no doubt about that they needed to win; or about the fact that to accomplish this she needed to execute the plan the Lucky Charm has marked out for her. She has never once stopped to consider before, whether that plan was morally right, because in the long run the outcome was what mattered, wasn’t it? But to threaten and intimidate an innocent civilian in the process, who would very much remember it afterwards… She was supposed to be the good guy, and heroes never did things like that. However, if her other option was to give up the Miraculouses, wasn’t carrying out this plan still the better choice? She wouldn’t really hurt her - she couldn’t with a theatre knife - so maybe just pretending until the akuma was defeated would be fine, wouldn’t it? She could apologize afterwards and make sure, that the woman was well taken care of. 

_“Hawkmoth can’t win,”_ she said with determination in her voice. The others’ eyes followed her as she pulled the knife to approach the couple submerged in a peaceful conversation. 

This was the moment when something unimaginably unforeseen happened. The villain’s back bent and purple bubbles sparkled on his whole body as the akuma left his tie. The amak also set itself free, erasing the huge figure of the sentimonster from existence. Ladybug gaped at the sight but swiftly captured and purified both of the objects with her yo-yo. 

She threw her Lucky Charm in the air still wondering, why did Hawkmoth surrender his seemingly tranquil minions so readily, when her team didn’t even have a chance to fight them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * "Isn't it better this way? Who the heck wants to go abroad just so they can't speak a word with anyone. I just wish that irritating voice would stop shouting, he's driving me mad," 
> 
> \----------
> 
> Thank you so much for making it this far, I really appreciate all the kudos and nice comments this story gets!  
> I had some difficulties with one of the future chapters, so I'm progressing slower than I intended. This likely means that there won't be an update next week, mostly because the following two chapters end on heavy cliffhangers, and I wouldn't want to keep you waiting too much after those. I'll try my best to write and finish this story as soon as I can but I don't want to rush it. 
> 
> Thanks for being here, take care until next time! <3


	10. Trouble is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien and Kagami have a talk about what the [trouble is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sivwVZFIaYM&feature=youtu.be) and one of them comes to a conclusion. Things would be way too easy if Marinette doesn't get involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you could say that this was the scene and the song that started the whole story in my head. Which of course means that I had to make an AMV for it. Enjoy! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sivwVZFIaYM&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sivwVZFIaYM&feature=youtu.be)
> 
> Shout out to [Clare](https://1kiss4surrender.tumblr.com/) and to [Missnoodles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missnoodles/pseuds/Missnoodles) for beta reading and helping me throughout the writing process! Thank you so much, you're both awesome!
> 
>  **Previously on Wake up, Sunshine:**  
>  After breaking up with Luka, Marinette confessed her feelings to Adrien. As Marinette and as Ladybug as well. She also got rejected as both of them. She feels like she makes mistake after mistake when a last blow makes her ask help from her partner in her Guardian duties. The duo decides to recruit new helpers and Marinette feels like she's finally ready to share her identity with her partner, who supports her no matter what. However, she wasn't successful. Yet. 
> 
> Adrien is determined that both Marinette and Ladybug (or are they the same person? he doesn't even know anymore) confessing their love to him can't ruin his relationship with Kagami. He IS committed. Even when it hurts. Even when he's too busy spending time with Ladybug to answer his girlfriend's messages.

Adrien was chasing after bad guys in his leather suit with his Lady on his side. They were vaulting from rooftop to rooftop, laughing at the incredible jumps they did while punning at each other wholeheartedly. For a moment he seemed to hear a siren going off, but it must have been the police trying to catch up with them. They cornered their enemy and with a well-adjusted swing of his baton, he destroyed the akumatized object. In the next moment, Ladybug was falling upon his neck, hugging him tight while whispering praises into his ear. He turned his head to face her but the bluebell eyes staring back at him adoring weren’t Ladybug’s  —  or were they? Marinette blinked back at him, smiling sweetly from almost nonexistent proximity. He couldn’t find it in himself to say he minded it. 

“Are you going to stay in bed all day?” she asked him in Kagami’s voice. 

Adrien’s eyes snapped open as he jumped into a sitting position in his bed. The angle in which the sunshine was radiating to the room made it evident that he has overslept. He kept on staring out at the windows to collect his thoughts about where he was supposed to be right now, but the sound of someone clearing their throat attracted his attention. 

“Good morning!” Kagami nodded to him from the door, marching to the couch. 

“Breakfast!” Adrien yelled startled as he jumped out of his bed. “Sorry, I totally zoned out, must have overslept,” he explained himself while raiding his closet to find something to change into.

“It’s not the first time, honestly,” Kagami remarked in an indeterminable tone. “Is something wrong, Adrien?”

“No, no, why would it be?” Adrien asked, paying little mind to the question. 

“Well, you rarely answer any of my texts, we couldn’t even talk after fencing because you had places to be, you ditched me every evening of the week, and you forget about our weekly Sunday morning breakfast,” Kagami had a go, counting the evidence on her fingers. 

“I guess I’m pretty tired. This week was insane,” Adrien answered reluctantly, finally facing the girl with a T-shirt in his hand. 

“Is that so? Because Nathalie seemed happy that I’m here and you’ll eventually be willing to leave your room,” she stated with a stern look. 

“Well, that’s because… We have this big assignment next week, and I needed to-” He tried to come up with a believable excuse, scratching on the nape of his neck with his hand. 

“Adrien, please don’t do this!” the girl asked calmly, still keeping her voice even, her eyes on the boy. “We may not have been together for a long time, but I can tell when you’re lying. You’re pretty bad at it. Just tell me, what is going on with you?”

Adrien fidgeted with the shirt in his hands, the gears turning in his head calculating how to get out of this situation. It was bad enough in itself that he completely ignored Kagami in favour of concentrating on his new co-guardian duties and education of their new helpers, but her noticing and calling him out on it wasn’t even slightly part of the plan. It was so frustrating! How could he convince her he wasn’t doing anything bad if he couldn’t tell her what exactly was he doing?

“It’s nothing bad, I promise!” he finally managed intelligently, his voice a little high. 

“It’s about Ladybug, isn’t it?” Kagami asked, hanging her head, staring at her fingers which laid laced together on her lap. 

“What? Of course not, why would it be about Ladybug?” Adrien felt his cheeks flushing. He couldn’t be this obvious about being Chat Noir, could he?

“It’s always about Ladybug!” Kagami snorted, fixing her burning gaze in her boyfriend once again. “At first, I thought it was a silly celebrity crush and with time you’d get over it. But it’s been two months and you still get push-up notifications from the Ladyblog and make googly eyes if you ever see a picture of her. I mean, if you're so into superheroes let me remind you that I was one too, but you never really seemed to care about that,” Kagami said bitterly. 

“It isn’t because of what you think,” the boy mumbled, panicked. 

“Oh, really? Because on the other hand, you do the same with Marinette. I know she’s kind and wonderful and talented and a really good friend but so is Nino and you didn’t start chasing after  _ him  _ during an akuma attack, abandoning your girlfriend!” Kagami’s voice was full of emotions, her fists clenched together in her lap. 

“You don’t understand! Marinette is just a friend!” Adrian protested viciously because all the arguments Kagami lined were (mostly) due to his double life.

“Oh, come on, Adrien! No one believes you for months now when you say that, I think yourself included, you’re just too caught up obsessing over Ladybug to admit it,” Kagami remarked dismissively. 

“I’m not obsessing over Ladybug!” he huffed, biting down the ‘anymore’ from the end of his sentence. “It’s you I’m dating, and I’m committed!” he said, taking pride in his declaration. 

Kagami took a deep breath to calm herself before she went on. “I know that, Adrien,” she acknowledged with a sorrowful smile on her lips. “But if you’re being honest for a minute, is this what you really want? Us?”

“What do you mean?” Adrien asked, not sure anymore what direction their conversation was heading. Was this their first fight? Their last?

“Do you want to marry me and have children and grow old together? Adrien, am I a ‘hell yes’ to you?” Kagami asked softly. 

“Er, I mean-,” 

This was all the answer the girl needed. 

“It’s settled then. We’re over,” Kagami declared, lips pursed in a thin line as she stood up from the couch. 

“What? That’s it? You throw away our relationship just like that? I thought this was what you wanted!” Adrien protested throwing his arms open, dumbfounded by the quick turn of events. 

“Me too, but as it is, this is not good enough for me. I don’t want to always feel like a consolation prize, and since it seems like you can’t reach a conclusion about what you want on your own, I need to reduce your options. Don’t get me wrong Adrien, I care about you, but I care about myself more. That’s what you should also do. Besides, I had to realize that I was more in love with the freedom our relationship provided me with than you personally,” Kagami shrugged, letting her eyes fall from his. 

“If there’s something wrong with our relationship, aren’t we supposed to work it out rather than throw it away altogether?” Adrien tried to save what he could and act as it was expected from a responsible adult. Meanwhile, tears were starting to form in his eyes.

“If I have learned anything, that is that I don’t need to care, what we are  _ supposed  _ to do,” Kagami said walking up to him, taking one of his hands into hers. “The problem with our romantic relationship is that it concerns you and me,” she continued straightforward. “After all of this we can still be friends; moreover I’d like that very much because I value your friendship, regardless of your actual romantic target. On the same note, I regret nothing. I’m glad I got to be your first girlfriend, and you’ll always have a place in my heart, even if we were never in love,” she concluded with a faint smile on her face.

Adrien felt numb as the girl ran through a thumb on his face, wiping down a runaway teardrop. 

“Goodbye, Adrien!” she whispered before starting to the door. From there she turned around to look him in the eye once more. “I’d like to think I have set the bar pretty high for romantic partners, so my only wish is that you never settle for anything less. Go out there and find the girl who has always been lurking in the corner of your mind, whoever that is.”

The door slammed shut soundlessly after her, leaving Adrien standing alone in his room in his ladybug dotted pyjamas. 

* * *

Marinette was pacing the living room restlessly. It was already Sunday afternoon, two days after the ice-cream incident and she still didn’t reveal her identity to Adrien. Not because she didn’t try, she was desperate not to make the mistake of waiting until it was too late again, but the universe was quite frankly against her. Up to this point, she didn’t even realize how easy it was for her to sneak out of her own room to accomplish her superhero duties. Now, living in the living room, getting out felt almost impossible. She used up all her well-composed excuses for being out every day of the week when they were training their new helpers, so she was stuck in the house all weekend, doing homework and helping her parents. Of course, she couldn’t complain about this, these were necessities but a few unsupervised hours to meet up with Chat Noir would have been nice.

“Maybe I can get away after dinner,” she wondered loudly, for her kwami to hear it, a thing she also couldn’t do very often during the week. 

“I’m sure you can figure something out,” Tikki dismissed the proposition, in favour of concentrating on something of much higher importance. “But... Are you absolutely sure this is a good idea? Master Fu didn’t construct the rules to have fun. He made them, keeping an eye on the greater good. I don’t think you should question his decision, that keeping your identities secret is for the best.”

“Tikki, we have been over this a million times now,” Marinette pleaded. “I can’t do this alone anymore and I don’t want to! Adrien helped me so much during the past weeks. Watching out for the Miracle Box, planning out the recruitment, training our new heroes. The least he deserves in return is the opportunity to decide, whether he wants to know who I am or not. Not to mention that for a long time now, this week felt like the only occasion when we truly operated as equal partners. All the secrets and hiding Master Fu thought was necessary only made us more distant and I’m sick of it. I’m well aware of the risk we’re taking but I’m willing to take it,” she said in a tone that was intolerant of opposition.

Tikki only nodded and hummed to herself, seemingly trying to think up a counter argument. If you asked Marinette, her kwami behaved infuriatingly in the matter of defying Master Fu’s rules, always making her second-guess her own judgement. 

The currently silent disagreement was disturbed by the persistent ringing of Marinette’s phone. The girl ran to the device, only to pick it up slightly confused. 

“Hello, Marinette!” said her friend on the line.

“Hi, Kagami, what’s up?” Marinette frowned her eyebrows. The girl has never called her before, they strictly stuck to texting.

“I just wanted to inform you, that Adrien and I have stopped seeing each other,” Kagami continued informatively.

“You did what?” Marinette gaped, almost dropping the phone. “Have you broken up?! Why? What happened?” 

“I think he’s in love with someone else,” the other girl stated, surprisingly collected despite the information’s nature she was sharing. “That is the reason why I called you, actually. He might contact you about this matter. I can’t know for sure but it is a possibility. And while I don’t want to get your hopes up, I felt the urge to let you know that it’s alright by me if it happens.”

Marinette was standing in the living room with her jaw dropped, totally dumbstruck. 

“So, you want to tell me...” she tried to collect her thoughts. “You want to tell me that you and Adrien just broke up.”

“Yes.”

“Because he’s in love with someone else.”

“Yes.” 

“And you think it might be me.”

“It’s a possibility.” 

“So you called me up to tell me it was okay if I started dating him.”

“Yes, I think I spoke clearly enough,” Kagami confirmed everything eagerly. 

Marinette needed to sit down. Instead, she laid forward and supported herself with her elbow on the back of the couch.

“That’s… That’s really nice of you but are you alright?”

“Of course! What makes you think I am not?” Kagami asked and Marinette could clearly imagine the surprised expression plastered on her face. 

“I mean, what you’re just doing is pretty unusual...” Marinette started tentatively, playing with a runaway strand of hair. “You have every right to be upset after a break-up and want some distance or at least not to rush to your friend to give them permission to date your ex.”

“Well, as you can see, I am not upset. I had to realize, I was never really in love with him. Besides, Adrien is still a dear friend to me and as his friend, I want him to be happy. Just as much as I want to see you happy. You both helped and cared for me a great deal, it's time for me to reciprocate.”

“Thank you Kagami, you’re a great friend!” Marinette said, touched by her sentiment. 

“Nevertheless, I’d like to warn you, too. Don’t get your hopes up immediately. I know, you still love him  — Luka’s akumatization made that crystal clear  — but please, wait for him to take the next step when he’s ready. I’m positive he likes you but he seems to have some mixed feelings concerning Ladybug  — however ridiculous that may sound. I mean, I know he’s famous but she’s practically dating Chat Noir,” Kagami said skeptically. 

“Okay, thanks for letting me all of this know Kagami. I’m going to wait and look out for him,” Marinette said, practically bouncing on the ball of her feet in joy. “And if there is anything I can help you with, let me know, okay?”

“I most certainly will.“ A small smile’s presence could be detected in the other girl’s tone. “I need to go now but we should meet up sometime when things are back to normal.”

“Definitely! Bye Kagami! And thank you!” 

Marinette set down the phone with a wide grin before spinning around on her tiptoes. “Tikki! Adrien broke up with Kagami!” she said in a dreamy voice, practically levitating over the floor.

“As their friend shouldn’t you be less enthusiastic about this?” the kwami asked, frowning. 

“Honestly, Kagami seemed surprisingly chill about it,” she shrugged before getting all thrilled once again. “And Adrien… Adrien broke up with her because he’s in love with someone else. Actually, two certain people! Or he thinks so. But he’s not! Because according to Kagami, he still loves Ladybug and just started to like me. Marinette me! Can you believe it Tikki?! He has fallen for me twice!” she exclaimed bouncing while grinning so widely it hurt her face. She flopped down on the couch and murmured to herself. “This is the best day of my life!” 

Joy and bubbling excitement filled her up inside wholly as her Ladybug luck had finally started working, steaming the numerous wrinkles in her life. If there could be greater happiness experienced in the whole world, she wasn’t sure. She felt ecstatic and invincible as she pitched camp on cloud nine. How could she not, when Adrien liked her! Chat Noir loved her! He adored both of her! 

“I need to tell him tonight!” she sat up rashly, as if lightning struck her, when it was just the realization. “He doesn’t know he likes only one person. He must be agonizing, beset by doubts. I need to tell him immediately to set him free.”

Marinette reached for her phone and still grinning like a fool typed in a message to Chat Noir, asking for a meeting she could hardly wait for. 

* * *

Adrien was indeed agonizing. He was trying so hard to make it work with Kagami, to make her feel special and finally fall in love with her. As it seemed, all his effort was in vain. No matter how hard he tried, his love for Ladybug kept haunting him, ruining his attempts to move on. It seemed that in the end it didn’t matter that he chose Kagami and was determined to stick with his choice. He has never questioned her feelings, so he didn’t expect the girl to give up on him so readily either. And while she let him down so gently, framing it as she was doing it for both of them, she still broke up with him without considering his pennies on the matter. He still thought that they should have tried harder to resolve their problems. That was what couples did, wasn’t it? 

He was also a little angry with himself and Ladybug, because ultimately his secret life coming into the limelight was the cause of the current situation. If only he would have spent more time with Kagami. If only they weren’t trying to catch up with the work Ladybug postponed since becoming the Guardian. If only Kagami gave him a little more time… He could have learned to love her the way she needed him to. 

Her proposition about jumping into a new relationship with someone else just now felt ridiculous. Of course, he wanted to date Ladybug for a long time, and now he would be able to do so but seeking her out so swiftly after things ended with Kagami felt wrong. Treacherous even. How could his ex  — it hurt to refer to her like this, but this was the stubborn, objective truth  — think he valued their relationship so little? 

Not to mention her speculations about Marinette, which felt just absurd. He had to admit, there was a tiny chance, that he liked her but he sure as hell wasn’t in love with her, was he? That would have been the utter betrayal of his previous relationship: falling for someone else while dating Kagami. No, he couldn’t have done that… Right? 

“Hey, kid, you’re going to be late!” Plagg warned him as his time for departure approached. 

Adrien grumbled to his feet and started into the night without much enthusiasm. He wasn’t even surprised when Ladybug requested to meet up with him as soon as it was possible. It was just his luck to have emergencies in his personal and work life simultaneously. 

He was waiting for her at the Eiffel Tower, submerged in his own bitter thoughts. Consecutively, he was a little startled when his partner landed unnoticeably and fell upon his neck with the same momentum. 

“Chat!” she exclaimed, a gleeful expression written all over her face.

“It’s good to see you, Ladybug,” he smiled back at her faintly after she let him go. 

In her excitement she didn’t notice his dull tone, the picture-perfect model smile he mustered to his face or his slumped shoulders. 

“I’m so glad you’re here. I absolutely need to tell you something!” she continued passionately, fidgeting with her hands as if she wanted to hold something with them but there was nothing appropriate within reach. 

“I’m all ears,” he said tiredly, but all the while trying to appear attentive. He had to focus on work to take his mind off his own struggles. 

“I made up my mind, I’d like you to know my identity,” she declared, flashing a bright smile at him.

“Whoa, really?” Adrien was genuinely astonished. When did this happen? Where did it come from? “What about keeping the identity of the Guardian a secret?”

“You’re just as much of the Guardian now, as I am,” she waved dismissively. “I trust you with my life, with the safety of Paris. I couldn’t do this without you by my side, so it’s time for us to stand on the same ground once again.” 

“Thank you, Ladybug,” he said sheepishly. What else could he say? Her smile was so dazzling, her expression so hopeful. He didn’t have the stomach to tell her, this probably wasn’t the best time. He was the one to constantly nudge her about revealing their identities, anyway. And he unquestionably wanted to get to know the girl behind the mask, so did it really matter, when the reveal happened? 

Unless he already knew her. To the thought, his stomach tied itself into knots but just like the countless times before this, he couldn’t tell whether he was hoping for or against his theories to come to life. He didn’t want to feel disappointed by Ladybug’s identity if she didn’t turn out to be Marinette. But he also didn’t want to face the consequences, if she did. Not right now. 

“Not to mention, I’m pretty sure you’ll be thrilled about this revelation,” she smirked before saying the words that changed their relationship once again, for once and for all. “Spots off!”

Ladybug’s figure shone up in a pink light as her disguise vaporised, leaving behind a timidly smiling Marinette Dupain-Cheng. 

Any other day, this sight would have made Adrien overly excited and joyful because finding out your best friend and love is really one of your best friends had that kind of effect. Any other day he also would have been proud for himself for guessing right. Finding it out today of all days, all he could come up with was a weak smile. 

“Hi, Adrien!” Marinette lifted her hand in a shy, friendly wave. 

“Hi, Marinette!” he managed, fighting back his tears. 

There was no use denying it anymore. He was in love with his very good friend Marinette. He fell for her while dating Kagami, or long before that, who could tell. Kagami was right, he absolutely did do that to her, without even noticing. 

To say he felt guilty about all of this would have been an understatement. 

“You don’t look too happy. Did you expect someone else?” Marinette asked, still optimistic but with a shade of worry in her tone. 

“No, definitely not. I kind of knew it had to be you,” Adrien said with a half-smile, bringing his hand to the nape of his neck. What else was there to be said? He couldn’t tell he was surprised about the revelation, he suspected it for a while now. Still, he never stopped to contemplate what that really meant. He kept putting off examining his feelings up close because they showed an unpleasant picture. One that was talking about mismade decisions, ulterior motives and cheating on an emotional level. It all bottled up inside him, the pressure only increasing, and led to this very moment where he wasn’t ready for it but had to face the music nonetheless.

“Oh. You did? I thought I was sparing a lot of headache for you,” Marinette admitted with a laugh. “Nevertheless, this is wonderful! I mean, I’m so sorry for what happened with Kagami, but I’m so glad you realized we were making a mistake.”

“We… I...” He frowned his eyebrows uncertainly. What was she even talking about? How did she know Kagami has broken up with him? Was this the reason for her sudden change of approach? He didn’t want to believe Marinette would try to take advantage of his situation, but what else was he supposed to think?

“When Kagami called me to give a heads up about what happened and assure me that it was okay if we started dating, as if you ended up choosing me instead of Ladybug, I felt ecstatic.” Marinette gesticulated heavily with her hands, practically ablaze. “I know this sounds bad but Kagami seemed to be doing just fine and I felt uncontainably happy because it doesn’t matter who you choose, in the end, it would have been me. But then I realized you don’t know that and you must feel very conflicted. So, I needed to make it easier for you,” she admitted with a grin that screamed ‘Isn’t life fantastic?!’.

“Did you… Did you only reveal your identity because of this?” Adrien asked, swallowing past the lump in his throat. He hated what he implied but he had to ask her. Even if it meant risking all his trust in Ladybug on a single word. Even if he didn’t think he could bear her affirmative answer. Putting him through everything she had for secret identities sake and throwing it all away, just so he started dating her  _ right now _ was something that he couldn’t think  — even in his worst nightmares  — that Ladybug was capable of doing.  _ She is nothing like this, she isn’t! _ his mind screamed, but he had to ask.

“No, of course not!” she objected instantly, taken aback by his accusation. “I wanted to do so back when we were having ice-cream on Friday. Hell, I wanted to tell you long before that, although I kept convincing myself that it was irresponsible and dangerous. But when I broke down you lifted me up and started to help with the Guardian duties. From then on, I knew it was only a matter of time until I was brave enough to forge my own rules and get rid of Mater Fu’s premises that didn’t work anymore. We are equals, you had every right to know who I am! What happened with Kagami only supplied an additional argument for why I couldn’t hesitate any longer.” She smiled up at him brightly as she placed her hand gently on his upper arm. Adrien drew apart, stepping away so her hand fell back to her side. 

“What do you think happened with Kagami?” he managed to choke out despite the overwhelming enthusiasm of his partner. 

“What? Didn’t you break up with her because you don’t love her the way you were supposed to?” she asked, surprised, realizing for the first time since her arrival that something was off. 

“No. She did,” Adrien said, pursing his lips in a thin line while crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Oh,” Marinette breathed, staring up at him in utter shock. “You didn’t even want to end it with her?”

“No,” Adrien shook his head dismissively. 

Marinette stumbled backwards, still staring at him with unbelievably wide eyes. “I’m such an idiot,” she whispered.

“It isn’t your-” he started driven by the instinctive urge to comfort his partner. In the end, he didn’t. 

“I’m sorry, Adrien! I was so happy that I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have… I thought you loved me and it made me...” she clamped her hands over her mouth as she realized what she just said. 

_ ‘I do! I love you!’ _ he wanted to scream. On any other day he would have told her exactly that. Today wasn’t one of those days. “I need time. To sort this out.”

“I-I understand,” she said resignedly, staring at her feet with tearful eyes. 

Adrien wanted to run up to her, pull her close and kiss away her tears. His hand flew to the air involuntarily. It was lingering between the two of them just like the sorrowful atmosphere, until he forced it back to his side. 

He needed to get away from here. From Marinette. From Ladybug. He had to sort out what really happened. How could this situation emerge in the first place? Why wasn’t trying his best good enough for Kagami? How could have he be in love with someone else the whole time, without even noticing? Was continuing to date the girl after Ladybug confessed to him unnecessary and cruel self-deception? Was he ignoring the obvious signs, the calling of fate that attracted him to his classmate? He most likely was. But then again, why did he feel so uneasy and conflicted now, once all of the cards were on the table? 

He had questions nobody could give him a ready answer for. He was the only one who could eventually find them. 

“I care about you a lot. All of you. I just need some time. Alone,” he said once he had found his voice. He squeezed Marinette’s shoulder awkwardly but as he jumped off the tower to freefall until his baton reached the ground, he could still hear Marinette’s bursts of sobbing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sneakily updates chapter count* See you next Monday!
> 
> If you are interested in reading or writing fanfiction and you are looking for a community of like-minded and supportive people, come and join the [Miraculous Fanworks Discord](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) server!


	11. Safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to make amends!   
> The weather is clearing, it's finally [safe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSj59boCGmo) to sail!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the beginning, I was good at keeping the chapters even-length. By now, every chance of doing so is lost. So, just enjoy feelings and emotional problem-solving skills in action in 6k words!

Adrien was good at denying his feelings. He practiced it so often, he mastered the art of ignoring the details that didn’t comply with his actual world view. Adrien was however, not good at realizing his feelings and sorting them out. This was the reason why he paced his room restlessly while Plagg mustered him from his desk. 

“What do I do now?” He popped the question at last, stopping in his tracks, spreading his arms in a cry for help. 

“Overthinking that you could finally be together with Pigtails?” the kwami supplied unhelpfully.

“Argh, you’re not helping!” Adrien huffed before resuming to marching his room back and forth.

“Alright, I’m going to go ahead and solve all of your problems. But be aware, my honorarium is two wheels of camembert per hour,” Plagg warned him before abandoning his clown costume and asking. “What do you know now?”

Adrien stopped again and frowned his brows as he eyed his friend suspiciously. “What do you mean, what do I know?”

“Just list it.”

“Uh, I mean… I know for sure that Marinette is Ladybug,” Adrien said, running his fingers through his hair with a puzzled look. He sat down on the edge of the couch, ready to jump back up again any minute. “And I know that she likes me. Or rather that only she likes me, not two separate people,” he clarified, his look trailing off to the ceiling.

“What else?”

“That Kagami didn’t want to be my girlfriend as much as I thought she did. And that... after all, this may not be such a bad thing, as I first thought,” he admitted reluctantly, his feet drumming restlessly on the floor. 

“And?”

“And that I was a horrible boyfriend, who wasn’t even in love with her! Hell, I started dating her to replace Ladybug!” he burst out, vaulting from his sitting position. “And when it became clear that my heart wasn’t in the right place, I just pushed and pushed, not even asking her what she wanted! I guess it’s only fair she didn’t ask me whether I wanted to break up or not.” The laughter bubbling out of his throat could have been called many things, bitter or self-deprecating for instance but joyful surely wasn’t one of those descriptors. “Oh, and the best part is:  _ I  _ didn’t even realize on my own that I was in love with Marinette!  _ Kagami  _ did!” he exclaimed with an additional manic laugh before looking at Plagg, eyes wide in panic and desperation. “How could have I done this to her?!” 

He fell back onto the couch, burying his face into his palms and let the waves of guilt wash over him. He couldn’t believe how could he deceive both of them so spectacularly, without any intention to do so. He cringed from only thinking about it. However, denial didn’t lead anywhere, as he started to figure it out. He needed to be truthful with himself, even when- especially when he wanted to hide that truth in the bottom of the ocean.

He didn’t notice that Plagg left his previous place, only when his pawn started to pat his head awkwardly. “There, there. It’s alright, kid.” He channelled all the wisdom and expertise in consolation that he picked up during his endless lifespan. 

His uncharacteristic behaviour was enough to shake Adrien to his core and make him realize, there was only one thing left to be done. He had to try his best, just like Plagg did in this time of need. He had to come to terms with his actions and feelings to progress forward. It felt inevitable as it was the only way to set things right with Ladybug. Marinette. Which he needed-, had to-, yearned to do. Yes, he could do this for her. He could make everything alright again, to earn the happy ending he always imagined was waiting for them at the end of the line. All he needed was determination and time. 

* * *

Marinette felt restless. The only way she could stop her feet from lifting her up on her tiptoes in her nervous anticipation was by walking back and forth on the corridor in front of her classroom. So walking she did. 

It was surprisingly early, meaning that on any other day at this time she would have just woken up and would have been trying to bribe Tikki into giving her only five extra minutes to sleep. Instead of that, today she was eagerly waiting for a blonde mop of hair to show up at the bottom of the stairs. 

Since her disastrous identity reveal yesterday, she couldn’t stop thinking about how majorly she messed it up  — again. She was so happy because of Adrien’s assumed feelings towards her that she didn’t notice the signs that obviously let her know, the timing couldn’t have been worse. She really should have stopped speculating instead of communicating and ask the boy, how his break-up really went down, rather than jump on him, thinking she knew the truth from Kagami. In hindsight, she could also see how she didn’t give him a real choice about getting to know Ladybug’s identity. She rushed forward with the information to spare him the headache, which resulted in only turning it into more. 

All in all, Marinette felt ashamed of her behaviour yesterday while finding it spectacular, how she could always mess up her life while having only the best intentions. 

She kept going over the things she needed to say, when her partner appeared on the stairs. Arriving to the floor he turned into the corridor leading to their classroom, only to find himself face to face with the unsettled Marinette. 

“Hey, Adrien!” she addressed him anxiously, her heart pounding in her throat. “Can we talk?”

“Yes, I think we should,” he nodded seriously, following the girl to a more secluded area before turning to her in anticipation.

“I want to apologize for yesterday,” Marinette started, fidgeting with the band of her purse. “After talking with Kagami I jumped into conclusions when I should have just talked with you instead. I got so carried away, I didn’t notice how bad my timing was. I didn’t mean to appear insensitive or impatient, I was just trying to help. I’m really sorry, Adrien!” she said, her constantly monitoring eyes glued to the boy.

“Thanks, Marinette! I can see how you didn’t mean any harm but… I can’t do this right now,” Adrien said with a softened expression but not apologetically. 

“I understand perfectly!” she rushed forward with her answer, to get rid of even the shadow of a doubt that she expected anything else from him. “I had no intention to rush you, I understand that you need time before making any kind of decision. Breakups are rough as they are and I... wasn’t making it any easier on you, despite what I thought,” Marinette admitted, taking hold of her left elbow before continuing uncertainly. “I’d like to offer my support as a friend but... I can respect if you’d rather keep your distance. I’m just…” She took a deep breath before blurting out. “You’re really important to me! I’ll do whatever you need, just let me know what it is, please!”

“Thanks but I don’t think you can help me now. I have to settle this for myself, so what I need is space. I promise, I will settle it but until then...” Adrien didn’t finish his sentence. There was no need. 

“Okay,” Marinette nodded, fighting back a desperate whimper escaping her mouth. “See you at patrol then!”

“See you!” he mustered the tiniest smile before warily heading to the classroom’s door. From halfway, he turned back. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready!”

Marinette watched with clenched heart as he disappeared in the room. Collecting herself she reluctantly followed him, evaluating the situation. She wanted to help Adrien so badly  — like he did when everything seemed to slip out of her hands  — but she had to respect his wishes. If he wanted space and time, she had to give him just that. No devious plans to get near him or solve his problems. Only standing by until he reached a conclusion of any kind. 

And how long would that be? That was the most troublesome part. Because ‘when I’m ready’ could mean two days or never just as well. But Marinette had to wait it out. There was nothing else for her to do. 

* * *

The days of the week have passed. Neither unnoticably nor blissfully but passed. 

Adrien started to acclimate to the situation. Marinette — _Ladybug_ — sitting behind him in class, having lunch with her as part of the group while indulging in skin-deep conversation. In the afternoons, they were training the rest of their class to become part-time heroes, while at night they were patrolling the Parisian streets, mostly silently. The emptiness that the lack of banter and light conversation left was heavy, although he wouldn’t have called the time they spent together outright awkward. True, it was nowhere near to the familiar ease they usually interacted with, but it wasn’t so bad. Her silent presence was definitely better than the complete lack of it. 

During the time spent together, he could see the constant spark of worry in her eyes but she didn’t bring up their matter, for which Adrien was really grateful for. He was glad that she respected his wishes. It was easier to sort through his emotions like this, even if part of him wished she wasn't so good at complying with his request and keeping her distance. Because quite frankly, part of him missed her dearly, both in and out of the costume. He missed their friendship and missed the opportunity to show up at her balcony in the middle of the night without any particular reason, just to escape reality and spend time with his favourite civilian. He missed the ease with which he used to send a funny picture to Ladybug that reminded him of her. (Of course, now he could have sent those same pictures to Marinette, but he never did. He tried it once. He just opened up the messaging app to send the meme, when two girls pictures popped up at his most frequent contacts. Kagami’s face was the second on the list. Adrien threw the phone across the room with a loud groan.)

So, even if his need for space wasn’t about Marinette, but himself and coming to terms with his own actions and emotions, the bigger part of him  — the part that still felt guilty for everything that he did to Kagami  — was grateful that the girl didn’t push his boundaries. 

He’d tell her when he was ready, he kept telling himself. Even if as of yet, he had no idea how. Every scenario his brain could come up for such a situation felt ridiculous, but Adrien brushed off his doubts. He’d have to get to the part where he’d have to have that conversation in the first place; there was no use stressing over it beforehand. So he gritted his teeth and pulled through, trying his best to flip back his life to its normal routine, just as he promised himself he would. 

It was one of his attempts for this at the end of the week, that resulted in him standing in front of his opponent with his sword drawn, while saying, “I want to apologise, for everything my behaviour caused. There is no excuse for what I did to you, and I understand if you’re mad at me-”

“Adrien, I have told you already,” Kagami intersected, sighing, lowering her weapon. “I’m not mad at you. I understand that you had no intention of hurting anyone. And you didn’t. It was nothing but an unfortunate turn of events. Now you just go, ask Marinette out and all of these shenanigans end. It’s that easy,” she assured him with a serious expression before lowering her visor and jumping back into a fighting stance. “Now enough of this nonsense, defend yourself!”

Adrien complied but was defeated single-handedly each time they drew their weapons. His mind was elsewhere, churning over how Kagami thought moving on and forgiving himself would be that easy. Of course, he was naturally a forgiving person but this skill never before has had to be aimed at himself. It was an entirely different matter than forgiving others, so much so that he had very little idea, where to start. 

* * *

Adrien’s next weekend wasn’t uneventful, like he anticipated it would be. Obviously, he thought long and hard about the situation he got himself into and tried to make the most of it with Plagg’s help, but this wasn’t the part of his weekend that provoked his smile while sharing it with his friends on Monday. He felt his delight creep into his words as he announced the surprising news at the lunch table. His friends just stared back at him dumbfoundedly, their mouths practically hanging open in astonishment. 

Finally Alya was the one who broke the silence. “Your dad wants what now?” she asked, her eyebrows raised startlingly high. 

“He wants to host a sleepover for the whole class on Friday,” Adrien repeated what he said earlier, eyes shining bright. 

To tell the truth, when his father proposed the idea he was just as flabbergasted as his friends seemed now. Maybe suspicious even, as what could have caused such a drastic change in his father’s approach to parenting, but he willingly decided to get over his initial shock and embrace the change. If his father wanted to be a decent parent for once, he wasn’t going to sabotage his attempts. 

“Are you sure you didn’t misinterpret what he said? This doesn’t really sound like him,” Marinette vocalized the obvious concern cautiously. 

“He thought it would help, after what happened with Kagami. It was most likely Nathalie’s idea but he gave his permission, so I’m not complaining,” Adrien shrugged. “This is the coolest thing he had done for me, like ever,” he added excitedly. “So are you coming?”

“Dude, this will be the party of the year! Wouldn’t miss it for the world! Worry not, I’ll make the raddest playlist for the thing!” Nino enthused, getting over the first shock, and Alya was nodding eagerly too. 

“Can’t wait to hear it,” Adrien smiled at the couple who weren’t paying him attention anymore, as they were busy discussing the potential musical themes of the event. Adrien turned to the one friend who was still looking at him doubtfully. “Marinette, can I count on you, too?”

“Do you want me to go?” she asked back in surprise, seemingly anticipating a rejective answer.

“Of course! All of my friends are invited, you can’t miss it!” he beamed. 

Adrien decided long ago that his stupid self-deprecation wasn’t going to stop him from having a good time with his friends on his very first, very own sleepover. Anyway, how long were you supposed to blame yourself for something that happened two weeks ago and everyone else has already forgiven you? So the conclusion followed, Marinette had to come. She was his partner. His best friend. His favourite person, goddammit. Her place was there. Right next to him. 

“Then I’ll be there!” she said with a genuine smile on her lips that made the butterflies in Adrien’s stomach flutter at the oh-so-familiar intensity.

* * *

The heroes of Paris were sitting facing each other on a secluded rooftop in their civilian attire  — to let their kwamis bond after their long separation. Their legs were crossed as they hunched over a notebook, where a list started to form in Marinette’s neat handwriting, detailing the supplies that needed to be purchased for the upcoming party. 

Adrien had to acknowledge, it was nice to hang out with her like this. Just the two of them, finally without the burden of secret identities, indulging in a real conversation. It almost felt like their friendship was fully back on track; like their dynamic wasn’t turned on it’s head by reveals, confessions and the itching feeling deep inside him that urged him to kiss his very good friend. 

“Thanks for helping me Marinette! I wasn’t exactly sure what we would need, but I didn’t want to push the whole party planning onto Nathalie either. She has plenty on her plate already,” he explained, thinking about all the extra hours Nathalie had to spend in the mansion, arranging who knows what for his father.

“Of course, I’m happy to help,” Marinette smiled. “We could prepare party games, if you want to. A game of Uno, juice-pong or an eating competition. I’m sure Kim and Alix would be more than happy to try to beat everyone.” However, seemingly startled by Adrien’s prolonged silence she swiftly added, “but of course, we don’t have to! We could just hang around without anything planned and have a good time.”

“I like the idea of games! Mom used to play Uno with me sometimes,” he said with a nostalgic glint in his eyes. 

“You don’t talk much about her,” Marinette said softly.

“No. There isn’t much to say. It’s been almost three years now since she died. I’ve accepted that she’s gone but...” he shrugged, staring at the rooftop intently. “The house is so big without her, it can get really lonely sometimes. It rarely feels like home.”

Was it foolish to hope this could still change? That his father’s uncharacteristic encouragement to hold a party for his friends meant, he was ready to move on at last and reconnect with the people who were still there for him? Not to say Gabriel would have been the father of the year before, but at least he was present in his son’s life. Calm dinners and reluctant smiles were better than an indeterminate presence, lost somewhere deep in the silent house. 

Ever since the death of Emilie, it was as if for his father Adrien stopped existing outside of his role as the Agreste brand’s face, a mere tool to advertise with, to send out to public events as a representative. Adrien, the son of Gabriel Agreste ceased to exist along with his wife. But that was fine, Adrien kept telling himself. Lately he wasn’t really bothered by it. He got used to the situation, so much so that it rarely crossed his mind that things could be different. That he could have an actual connection, even a loving one, with the only parent that he got left. 

This was although, one of those rare occasions. Could this opportunity be the silver lining for his long-forgotten daydream to come true? The sudden, inexplicable change in his father’s behaviour? Who knew, maybe this event marked the ending of his old life, introducing him to something new and exciting, a second chance for his family. Of course, this hope of Adrien could have turned out just as well to be nothing but a fever dream, but the spark of hope still made the upcoming gathering appear as a potentially life-changing event in his eyes.

Adrien shook off these burdensome thoughts of himself and looked up, only to see Marinette’s worried expression and her tentatively outstretched arm in the air between the two of them. “I’m so sorry, Adrien.”

“It’s alright, my Lady,” he said with a half smile, taking her hand and squeezing it. 

_ It’s going to be. I’m not alone anymore. _

* * *

Marinette was on her way to the sleepover with a sleeping bag tucked under her arm. Her maroon knee-length red dress kept twirling around her legs as she hurried on the pavement, sweeping out the stray locks of her untied hair of her face. 

Truth be told, she was a little nervous because of the occasion but also looked forward to it. She presumed that this was just the way people were, after having a two-week long relationship of uncertain nature with their superhero partner. Because Marinette had no idea where her relationship with Adrien stood and frankly, she was too afraid to ask. She promised him space and her unwearing support with anything he needed, and she stood by this promise firmly. Still, the unsteadiness of the situation that constantly floated in the air between the two of them made Marinette anxious. What if he decided that in spite of — or what was worse, because of — everything that they went through, he didn’t want her anymore? 

_ Then you’re going to thank your lucky star that he still stayed your partner and friend, and help him live his life to the fullest, without bringing up the whole fiasco ever again. That’s what you’re going to do, _ she scolded herself mentally, while stopping at the gate of Adrien's house and pressing the bell. As the gate started to open, she slipped through the gap, hurrying up to the entrance, where she was greeted by Nathalie.

“Welcome, Miss Dupain-Cheng!” The woman looked her through with a profound stare, giving a particularly appreciative look to her earrings. “The party’s on the first floor, dinner will be served at seven.”

“Thank you!” Marinette smiled up at her before heading in the said direction. 

Stepping foot on the stairs she could hear the melody of a song from Nino’s carefully selected playlist, letting her know that the DJ was already in the house. She scaled the stairs, arriving at a huge hall that had entrances on every wall, except the one opposite of her, that — just like in Adrien’s room — was fully covered by windows. The lobby was furnished with a huge couch, a coffee table, a TV and several temporarily set up desks, conveying the impression of a rarely used living room. Some of the classmates who have already arrived, namely Mylén, Ivan and Alix, were standing around the coffee table that was stuffed with snacks, and chatted. 

Marinette greeted them with a friendly wave, and a few words were exchanged while she placed her backpack and sleeping bag next to the others’ at the wall. She fished out the box of macarons that her parents sent from the bag, and placed the open box alongside the other sweets on the table. 

The casual conversation was disturbed by Alya, who upon seeing her best friend fell upon her neck. “Girl, you have to check out Adrien’s room! It’s awesome!” she enthused, dragging her along immediately in the direction of the door opening from the room’s left wall. 

Looking around on the corridor leading to Adrien’s room Marinette noticed several security cameras staring back at her from the walls.  _ No wonder he doesn’t feel like this would be his home, this is a fortress, _ she grumbled in herself.

Marinette was prepared to pretend to be astonished by the enormous room with the climbing wall and everything, which she wouldn’t have known about if not for being Ladybug or sneaking into Adrien’s previous party — two things her best friend was left in the dark about. However, stepping into the room her breath legitimately hitched as her eyes fell onto Adrien. If she wouldn’t have been already madly and irrevocably in love with him, she’d have fallen for him again now. 

He was wearing his usual jeans with a white button-up shirt, which apart from being uncommon on him really suited him. However, the icing on the cake wasn’t his semi-elegant attire or his soft, golden hair that he wore somewhere between his usual Adrien and Chat Noir look. No, the accessory that caused Marinette to choke on thin air was the blue scarf she hasn’t seen him wear for a long time. 

“Hi Marinette!” he greeted the newcomer with a vibrant smile. 

“I’ve brought macaroons!” she blurted out, just to say something. “I mean macarons! Because, you know, they are very different things. I mean, of course, both of them are cookies but they are very different kinds of cookies, so it isn’t negligible which one one means. Just imagine, if I’d think we’re making macarons while you’d think we’re making macaroons, and we wouldn’t realize the misunderstanding and we’d want to-”

“I’m happy to see you, too!” the grinning Adrien silenced her by pulling her in for a tight embrace.

For a moment Marinette just stood there stock-still, before hugging him back, and burying her crimson cheeks into the curve of his neck. “Oh, please, kill me,” she muttered barely audibly. 

“Not a chance, Bugaboo,” Adrien whispered back for only her ears to hear, a smirk evident in his voice. 

Marinette didn’t know for how long they would have been standing there like that, if Alya didn’t clear her throat in an indication that they weren’t, in fact, alone in the room. When to the gentle nudge they broke apart, Marinette acknowledged with a smirk of her own that Adrien’s cheeks were also a slightly pinker than normal. 

“Khm, let me show you around,” he offered with a polite smile after clearing his throat.

The “room tour” didn’t last long but by the end of it Nino was at the football table, inviting them for a game. He chose Marinette as his fighting partner, probably hoping that she was a natural at any game she put her mind to. However, after losing to Adrien’s and Alya’s duo for a second time, he had to admit, even Marinette couldn’t excel at everything.

While they were busy with the game the rest of the class had also arrived and lively chatter filled the otherwise quiet mansion. Marinette went out of her way to talk with every one of her friends and not just hang around Adrien for the whole night, which wasn’t that hard, considering that the boy was occupied with the host’s responsibilities. Still, Marinette could sense his ever present sight on her wherever she went.

After a while, Adrien announced the start of the juice-pong championship, which as predicted, fevered ones while being indifferent to others. Juleka and Rose tried out the game that was set up on the temporary tables of the living room, only to fall out early, although they kept being interested in cheering for the others. Even Chloé gave the game a shot before, upon failing for the first time, declaring it utterly ridiculous and marching off with Sabrina in her heels. The boys lasted longer but slowly fell out one by one, alternating from competing to rooting for Kim to outdo Alix’s previous score. Alya was recording and commenting on the events vigorously, making Marinette, who was standing beside her, burst out in giggles from time to time. 

The only one who didn’t seem to indulge in the party game was Lila, who was sitting in a corner alone, rolling her eyes at her excited classmates and checking her watch minute by minute. For Marinette it was an inexplicable concept on its own why Adrien invited her in the first place, but it was just as baffling why she bothered to come, if all she wanted to do was to get as far away from all the fun as possible. However, Marinette learned that as long as Lila stayed put, she was better off ignoring her existence altogether. She wasn’t someone worth ruining her night over.

When the first round of the championship ended Alix was announced the winner, but all she won was a cocky expression from Kim and a demand for a rematch after dinner, which she gladly accepted. With rumbling stomachs and loud chatter, the class marched to the dining room to have the promised dinner, which turned out to be homemade hamburgers by the personal chef of the mansion. 

The huge dining table made it possible for all of them to sit down at the same time and consume the delicious, and most likely healthy, servings of burgers. The banter and conversation didn’t die down, filling the enormous place with life. Taking a single side-glance at Adrien was enough for Marinette to realize, how desperately he craved the return of this light mood to his home. His eyes were shining bright as he joked with Nino and Nathaniel on the end of the table, throwing back his head with laughter. 

After all of the food was gone, the gang — minus Lila, who mumbled something about feeling unwell and laying down in the guest room downstairs — returned to the upper floor. The girls saw fit to continue the party by moving around their body aimlessly, an act most people politely call dancing, so Marinette joined them, jumping around and swinging her hips to the beat joyfully. 

She was dancing with Alya’s hands in hers when the girl’s phone launched a notification attack, buzzing and beeping unconditionally. With one hand Alya pulled out the device from her pocket frowning and studied the messages before she winced and let go of Marinette’s other hand too. 

“I need to take this!” she said dryly as she hurried out of Adrien’s room, not even glancing up to her surprised friend. 

“What got into her?” Adrien asked, stepping next to Marinette with his brows furrowed. “Do you think it’s an akuma?”

“No, she would have let us know that,” Marinette deemed. This didn’t mean she had a good feeling about Alya’s departure though. 

“I guess we can ask if there’s anything wrong when she arrives back. Until then,” Adrien offered his hand to her, bowing but still looking at her with a mischievous smirk. “Shall we dance, milady?”

“We shall,” Marinette took his hand beaming but only held onto it like she did with Alya’s. This was a purely platonic gesture towards her purely platonic partner, who she was desperately in love with. 

They were goofing around on the dance floor, spinning and having fun to the point Marinette quite frankly forgot about the existence of everyone else in the room. How could anyone else matter when she was so close to Adrien, holding his hand, following his lead, basking in his undivided attention. Marinette’s heart fluttered to the gentle touch of his fingers, his genuine laugh, the brilliant emerald eyes that followed her wherever she twirled. 

Marinette only noticed that her classmates did indeed evaporate from the room, leaving them on their own, when they came to a halt as the music changed and a slow, romantic song started playing. Marinette blushed and tried to let go of Adrien’s hand to be anywhere but in this situation but she couldn’t. The boy’s grip on her was firm as he gently pulled her closer, placing his hands on the small of her back, the constant smile on his face never fading.

Marinette smiled back at him automatically and rested her hands on his shoulders, slowly easing into his embrace. They took a few more unhurried steps while silently gazing into each other's eyes. 

“God, you’re beautiful!” Adrien whispered, seemingly surprising even himself with the declaration. However, his amazed expression rapidly transformed into one of affection and certainty. 

“Adrien...” Marinette breathed, gazing up at him with wide eyes, her pulse speeding up instantly. 

“Do you remember what I promised you?” he asked, pulling her closer until their faces were only inches apart. 

Marinette remembered his promise quite vividly. Two weeks ago, in front of their classroom Adrien vowed to settle things for himself and notify her when it’s all sorted through. However, with her heart throbbing in her throat, Marinette didn’t trust herself to say any of this. Instead, she nodded. 

“It’s settled. I’m ready.”

“What does that mean?” she whispered the question, fighting for air and for keeping her sanity despite the nonexistent distance between their bodies. She could practically feel Adrien’s rapid heartbeat against her chest, throbbing with her, ever in sync. 

“It means that we were idiots running circles around each other for way too long. It’s time to make amends.” 

His smile was to die for as he cupped her face with his left hand, and leaned in even closer. Marinette felt the euphoria rush in her veins as she carefully lifted herself up on her tiptoes to close the distance between the two of them. At first, her lips met his tentatively, barely brushing each other. But in the next second, as if her consent would have been the only cue he was waiting for, Adrien pulled her to him with longing, deepening the kiss. His lips moved softly but firmly against hers, taking her breath, that she willingly gave, away. 

If heaven was a feeling, this must have been it, Marinette decided. 

Finally Adrien was the one to pull away slightly, repositioning his hands on her waist but still holding her close. Marinette found with a victorious smirk that his cheeks seemed just as flushes as hers felt, his eyes gleaming with the same sparkle she imagined lit up her face. She intervened her fingers at the back of his neck with the intention of never letting go.

“If by making amends you meant  _ this _ … Yes, we should definitely make it more often,” she said with a grin.

“I’d like that very much,” he answered sincerely before a shit-eating grin appeared on his face. “But I don’t want to do it with Ladybug.”

As his words registered, the smile froze on Marinette’s rapidly paling face. She looked up at him with panic in her eyes, searching for sufficient words but they all died on her tongue. 

“I’d like to do it with my girlfriend, Marinette,” he went on, pressing a featherlight kiss to the girl’s forehead. 

“You stupid cat! You gave me a heart attack,” she pouted indignantly, smacking him lightly on the chest that he answered with a laugh. 

“You have nothing to worry about, Bugaboo. I have never truly wanted anyone other than you,” he soothed her, placing a finger under her chin to tilt it in a way that their gazes met. “And I never will.” 

“I guess you’re in luck, because I feel the same way about you,” she tried to grumble but her insuppressible grin broke through her feigned demeanour. “So, Adrien Agreste, would you make me the happiest girl on Earth and go on a date with me?”

“Only if I don’t have to wear a mask around you,” he smiled at her but his eyes shone with a deeper, more somber sentiment.

“Never. Never again, I promise!” Marinette vowed, catching his word’s double meaning. He wanted no more pretending, no more secrets, no more walls between them. Fortunately, this was the deepest desire of the girl’s heart too. 

However, there was an other layer of meaning left to address. “Actually, I’d prefer to keep Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s relationship professional for a while longer. It would be dangerous if Hawkmoth found out about us, not to mention the suspicion it would draw if they started dating at the same time Adrien and Marinette did,” she reasoned.

“If I can date you even in one scenario out of the four possibilities, I’m perfectly content with that. Besides, I wouldn’t expect any less from our responsible and strategic Guardian. A secret it is, Bugaboo!” he winked at her. 

“Says the  _ real  _ keeper of the Miracle Box,” she smiled and rolled her eyes playfully at the same time. 

“It’s only temporary. I’m just filling in for you,” he shrugged, as if saying  _ ‘don’t be ridiculous, I’m not doing anything worthy of recognition’ _ .

“You say that like you’d think I could do this without you. Because let me assure you Mister, there is no way! You are not, and never were replaceable!” the girl declared in a tone intolerant of opposition. 

“Thanks, Marinette,” Adrien smiled weakly before rapidly changing the topic. “So, do you think we should search for the others?”

“As much as I enjoy having you all to myself, I guess that would be the modest thing to do. You’re the host after all,” Marinette sighed resignedly. 

Adrien chuckled and didn’t miss out on the opportunity to intervene their fingers as they headed to the living room to check on their loud classmates, who judging by the cheers, were most likely back at playing juice-pong. 

The couple joined Nino and Max who were heavily discussing something practically standing in the doorway. 

“Have you not seen Alya either?” Nino asked them worriedly. “She disappeared for a while now and no one knows anything about her. She doesn’t even answer my messages.”

Marinette was about to recall how Alya stormed out of the dance floor after taking an ominous look at her phone but Max cut in, pointing in the direction of the room’s main entrance, that led to the grand staircase. “There she is!”

The others both glanced in the said direction, only to have the same baffled looks appear on their faces. Marinette couldn’t stifle a shriek fast enough not to call everyone’s attention in the room to herself. From there, they followed her gaze until the whole class was staring at the figure in the door in interest. 

Rena Rouge opened her mouth to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm drawn to unreasonable cliffhangers. I'm sorry! (but am I?)


	12. Basement noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you hear it? What's that [basement noise](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aWy28O3fPE)?

“Guys, we need your help! Ladybug is in big trouble and she can’t defeat Hawkmoth this time without all of your help. I know that this goes against the anonymity of superhero identities but there is no other way. She doesn’t have time to distribute the Miraculouses one by one and desperate times call for desperate measures,” Rena Rouge coaxed, coming closer to the center of the room. ”I know a lot of you are Miraculous wielders, so could you please follow me to Ladybug? She’ll explain everything that you need to know!”

A rumble ran through the room, wary looks have been exchanged but before Marinette could get over her bafflement and figure something out to repel those lies, Max spoke up.

“There is about zero percent chance Ladybug would do that after Miracle Queen,” he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest dismissively. 

“I’m well aware of how this sounds but you need to believe me! I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t indispensable!” the person who looked just like Rena Rouge pleaded. 

“That’s true!” Nino said, starting in the direction of the newcomer. “But you aren’t really here Alya, are you?” He swung his arm at the hero in an attempt to abolish the illusion but that stopped him in the air by grabbing his arm.

“Nino, please, we don’t have time for this! We need to get going!” the hero pressed. 

“She must have been akumatized! There is no way Ladybug would give her back  _ that  _ Miraculous!” Marinette found her voice at last, calling attention to the flawy detail in a way that must have piqued the attention of at least three of her classmates. 

“She did it once, against Luka, and she did it again, now,” ‘Rena Rouge’ waved her off. “This only proves that she needs all of us to stand a chance.”

“Ladybug may be hasty sometimes but she doesn’t make the same mistake twice,” Adrien said steadily, glaring Rena down.

“You aren’t fooling us akuma, we know you’re lying! Give us back Alya!” Alix cried and her words were accompanied by approving murmure from the class. 

“You dare to call me a liar?! I’ll show you!” Alya’s voice could be heard but it came from outside of the room. The next minute an akuma appeared in the door, fire burning in her eyes as she stared down the class. She was wearing a white robe and wielded a blade in her hand that had a slightly curved and translucent edge. Making a circular movement she pointed it at the whole class. “I’m Truth Teller, and I call all of you out on your lies! You claim to be pure-hearted but I know what you’re hiding! Ladybug and Chat Noir are in this room and I won’t rest until their identity is out in the open!” 

As to back up how serious the threat was, while she spoke at least a dozen black butterflies fluttered out from behind the bearing doors on the walls, each carrying a black feather with them. They filled the air, approaching one or the other classmate but changing direction when they weren’t scared enough to be akumatized. Yet. 

_ This is bad, this is really, really bad, _ Marinette’s head supplied unhelpfully, all the while searching for exit routes and Truth Teller’s potential akumatized object.

“The times when those so-called heroes could hide behind their masks while the people I care about were in danger are over! It’s time for the truth!” the akuma cried, dashing forward to stand beside Rena Rouge, who raised her flute threateningly. 

“Everyone hide and don’t let them touch you!” Marinette exclaimed, pulling Nino and Max who stood closest to her and Adrien out of the room. They rushed down the aisle but Truth Teller followed close behind them.

“I’ll occupy her! I don’t have secrets in front of Alya,” Nino said, stopping and turning around to face their chaser.

Marinette let out an intrinsic yelp as she lost her grip on the boy but catching sight of Adrien’s resigned expression convinced her. They pulled Max further and pushed him into an empty room. They heard the rumble of the fight taking place behind them but they couldn’t turn around and come to the rescue. Nino needed Ladybug and Chat Noir, not Adrien and Marinette.

Reaching Adrien’s room the couple shut the door on themselves and blurted out their transformation phrases in unison. 

“Rena Rouge must be a sentimonster under Truth Teller’s command, that’s why she was so convincing. She isn’t Alya but she is controlled by her,” Chat Noir said, trying to recap the situation.

“She isn’t our main problem,” Ladybug said, organizing her knowledge. The cogs in her head were spinning on full speed, working on a plan. “Truth Teller is much more dangerous. With her powers and all those akumas running loose, who knows when everyone will turn against us. We need all of the heroes we can get,” she decided. 

Chat wasn’t wasting his time on questions, he immediately scaled the stairs to reach his loft, most likely to fetch the Miraculouses from their hideout. 

“I’m going to intercept Truth Teller and try to prevent any further akumatization. You need to hand out as many of the Miraculouses as you can. Tell Alix to grab Chloé, Sabrina and Lila if she sees them and take them somewhere safe. The others will be either with or against us. As for Bunnyx, we need her to be safe and sound. She’s our last resolve if things go awry,” Ladybug spelled out the swiftly formed strategy while peeking out to the corridor. 

The akuma and Nino were nowhere to be found, so she decided to make her exit through the window. 

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around? You’re the Guardian so I can fight the akuma until you-” 

“No! You know the house much better than I do, that’s going to be for our advantage.” Ladybug short-circuited the objection, already squatting on the windowsill.

“Fine. But take this! Alya won’t be needing it anytime soon.” Chat turned to her and threw a shining object her way. Ladybug handily caught it and pinned the bee Miraculous in her hair before muttering the unifying command.

She lifted her eyes to take a last affectionate look at her partner who was rapidly opening the mini Miraculous boxes and stacking the jewels. “Thank you! Be careful, Chaton! This akuma is more dangerous than it seems at first, it can escalate quickly.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll  _ bee _ careful,” Chat turned back to her to send a wink in her direction before resuming his activity. “I’ll meet you as soon as I’m done with the distribution. Good luck, my Lady!” 

Marinette let out a half-hearted groan at his inappropriately timed pun but was out on the window with a swing of her yo-yo, flying towards the similar windows of the living room. 

She landed with one knee on the ground and was just about to bid thanks for her luck to Tikki for the open window, when she noticed the spark-eyed Nathaniel huddled up in hiding next to her. 

“Ladybug, is that you?” he asked, to which Ladybug just nodded. There was no point in coming up with a new superhero name for each and every unified transformation in the dens of the battle. She had more important things to concentrate on. 

“I knew you would come!” Nathaniel whispered enthusiastically. 

“Thanks for the window,” Ladybug smiled at him before peeking out of their hiding place from behind the couch. Muffled screams could be heard from all around the mansion but the living room was empty as of now. “Come with me, we need to find Chat Noir. He has a necklace for you”

“Awesome!” Nathaniel shone up as they crept their way through the deserted hall. 

They were heading to the room where Marinette hoped Max was still hiding. She kept her yo-yo in hand, ready to defend themselves with a swiftly formed shield any time, but fortunately it wasn’t necessary. They just reached their destination, when the door leading to Adrien’s room swung open and a heavily accessorized Chat stormed out on it. 

“Your first client,” Ladybug pushed Nathaniel towards Chat — whose usual black outfit was sparkled up with dark green fabric, supposedly belonging to the turtle Miraculous — before rounding both of them and dashing further on the aisle. She turned on the corner and listened to any kind of sound that would give away Truth Teller’s position. 

“It’s utterly ridiculous that she isn’t willing to give me back my Miraculous! That stubborn brat! She has even offered it to a new holder! As if anyone could compare to me!” Chloé’s dander echoed in the corridor. It was swiftly followed by Sabrina’s soothing words and whispered pleas to tone it down, so the akuma wouldn’t discover them, but it has found deaf ears. 

Marinette just rolled her eyes at the insults thrown at her. If anything, Chloé made her job about locating the pair easier. However, by the time she opened the door behind which they were hiding, she only found a scared-to-death Sabrina backing away from Antibug and Queen Bee.

“I can finally show you why am I twice as good as you’ll ever be!” they cried in unison, a malicious intent evident in their voice.

Ladybug threw out her yo-yo without hesitation. It coiled around Sabrina’s waist and she was yanked out of the way of her besties. She found herself beside Ladybug, running back with her in the direction she came from earlier. Rounding the corner they bumped into Chat Noir and two other heroes — the dragon Miraculous wielder Max and the fox Miraculous holder Nathaniel. 

“No time for introductions, Antibug and sentimonster Queen Bee are after us,” Ladybug said, coming to a stop beside her teammates. 

“We’ll take care of that, you go and do your thing!” Max answered, lifting his sword to stop the incoming two Chloés from trespassing. 

Chat picked up the still startled Sabrina in bridal style and raced onward with Ladybug to the main hall. Excited sounds welcomed them there as Alix, Mylén and Ivan, abandoning their initial plan of sneaking out of the mansion, ran up to them. 

“I’m going to scout the other wing. The akuma must be there,” Ladybug said to her partner who was already taking the appropriate jewels off of him. 

She threw herself into the by this time undiscovered part of the house with a heavily throbbing heart, readying her yo-yo to prepare for the unexpected. Opening the door to the first two rooms resulted in nothing, but in the third she came across Kim, who was pointing an umbrella threateningly at the entrant. 

“Kim, it’s good to see you unakumatized. If you hurry you can still find Chat Noir in the hall, he has your Miraculous,” Ladybug told him as both of them stepped out of the empty room. 

“Actually, I was thinking that-” Kim started but was cut in by a scream that came from nearby. He joined Ladybug as they started running in the sound’s direction, only to stumble upon Juleka and Rose, who were cornered by Truth Teller in the end of the passageway. 

“Tell me your secrets, Juleka!” she demanded, touching the girl with the blade of her sword. 

“Nonono…” Juleka tried to fight against the magic but it was too powerful for her to resist. “I-I’m in love with Rose!” she cried, burying her face in her palms and flopping down to the floor in defeat. As soon as her knees met the carpet, a black butterfly landed on her glove, flashing up the purple butterfly mask in front of her face.

“No, Juleka!” Rose cried at the same time, tears welling in her eyes to the sight of the black bubbles consuming the girl’s skin, only to reveal Reflekta’s pink façade. Rose let out a last sob before a butterfly landed on her bracelet too and in the next moment Princess Fragrance stood before them. 

“Run!” Ladybug whispered to Kim who didn’t object anymore and sprinted in the opposite direction. 

Marinette was just about to launch an attack in order to reach and destroy the akumatized objects, when the black feathers the butterflies were carrying until now landed on the fragrance bottle of Princess Fragrance and a hairpin in Reflekta’s hand, that Truth Teller just offered her. Ladybug gritted her teeth and while the air bubbled with black material in two concentrated points, she threw out her yo-yo to seize the hairpin. Reflekta let it go with a surprised yelp, for it to land in the heroine’s hand. She acknowledged with a somewhat victorious smirk that Juleka’s sentimonster hero form vaporized as soon as her feet touched the ground. If the power of Second Chance wasn’t on her side, she surely didn’t want to fight against it. 

However, realizing the overwhelming numerical superiority of her enemies — she would have been a fool to try to fight four opponents on her own — Ladybug turned on her heel and rushed back in the direction of the lobby, where she suspected her teammates to be. 

Pink swings of energy rushed past her, as Reflekta was trying to shoot her. She dodged and parried with the shield of her twirling yo-yo. 

Suddenly, a huge hero appeared between her and her chasers, barricading their way with his shield and body. Tiny mouse heroes launched themselves from his shoulders, jumping at the akumas, trying to deprive them from their weapons and the akumatized objects. However, Truth Teller — keeping her target in front of her eyes — jumped above them, following Ladybug to the hall. 

“You’re not going to get away this time!” she yelled, jumping at her. 

Ladybug dodged and tried to immobilize and capture her with her yo-yo, but the akuma always danced away in the last second. They were launching attacks at each other, both incapable of touching their opponent. 

From the corner of her eye Ladybug spotted a blur of orange not far from them, but she lost sight of it almost immediately. In the next second Truth Teller leaped in the air just as the floor shifted under Ladybug’s leg. In her surprise she couldn’t keep her balance and fell on the rug that was quite literally pulled out from under her feet.

She brought her arm protectively in front of her face and stared up at Truth Teller in horror as the akuma’s blade connected with her forearm.

* * *

Chat Noir was ready to finally join the fighting after he distributed all of the Miraculouses, and to Kim’s warning hid the ones they could no longer use with their wielders akumatized. He was running on the hallway in front of his room, heading to the lobby from where the sounds of battle filtered out. 

Just as he reached the entrance, a terrifying picture appeared in front of his eyes. Rena Rouge was squatting at the end of the carpet and pulling it with a vehement movement, that made Ladybug stumble and fell on the floor, directly in front of Truth Teller’s feet. Chat leaped forward with an exasperated yell but he couldn’t make it in time. He watched in terror as the akuma smote down with her sword. The weapon went over Ladybug’s arm. 

Fortunately, it passed through her without wounding her externally, but she shuddered under the magic’s effect. 

“Tell me your secret, Ladybug!” the akuma cooed, towering over the heroine.

“I’m… I’m actually...” Ladybug hunched, visibly struggling against the force of Truth Teller’s magic, but even she couldn’t delay the inevitable forever. 

Chat Noir froze in place, his heart pounding in his throat frantically in fear for his Lady’s identity. He wanted to jump in front of her and prevent the fateful words from rolling down her lips at any cost but it was much too late. 

Giving in to the compulsion, Ladybug lifted her head with a vicious smirk and proclaimed, “I’m dating Chat Noir!”

The akuma stared at her with a baffled look at first, lowering her weapon to her side, but her expression swiftly changed into one of childish excitement. “Oh my God, my ship is sailing!” she exclaimed in a voice that was unmistakably Alya’s. 

This was all the distraction Ladybug needed to grab her attacker’s weapon and yank it out of her hand. With a definite movement she broke it in half, making Rena Rouge shriek before evaporating from existence. 

Chat Noir let out a relieved, amused chuckle before leaping to his partner and pulling her to her feet and away from the akuma. It was an easy task to accomplish as Truth Teller was distracted with the aggressively flashing butterfly mask before her eyes. 

“That’s beside the point! I want to know who you are!” she grumbled finally when the mask disappeared. She tried to point her weapon at the heroes but it was in pieces. 

During the intermezzo the fighting pairs from the corridors came into the hall, grouping up with their respective sides. After a fast evaluation, counting four angry akumas and two uncertain sentimonsters while eight determined heroes, Chat stepped forward with a cocky expression. “Who’s having the upper hand now?” 

Truth Teller gritted her teeth and almost hurtled at them with her bare hands when a purple butterfly mask lit up in front of Antibug’s face. Seconds later Queen Bee mockingly remarked, already sprinting in the grand staircase’s direction. “We need more people. I bet Gabriel Agreste would make a fine akuma.” 

Chat wasn’t even thinking when he launched himself after her, chasing her down the stairs. Beside the obvious fact that one more akuma and sentimonster pair would have taken away their advantage in numbers, he didn’t really want to fight his father. 

Defeating Collector a few years back was hard enough for him in itself, he didn’t crave a redo. It was extremely intimidating to battle his father for various reasons, the main one being that his upbringing told him never to do that. Sure, he was older now but he wasn’t certain the visceral reflex to quail before him would ever truly cease. Of course, this didn’t mean that Adrien wasn’t sick and tired of his father’s controlling behaviour but the ways of his rebellion against it were concealed — and mostly performed in a leather catsuit. It wouldn’t have done to catch the Agreste brand’s most valuable asset doing something unacceptable, like having a normal adolescence, after all.

Coming to a stop in front of Queen Bee who was standing before his father’s office, Chat realized that Ladybug and Nino  — or rather his newest hero persona, Doog Boy  — followed him and now stood firmly beside him. 

“Let’s see what we got here!” the sentimonster said with a false-sweet tone before pushing in the double door and disappearing in the office. The heroes followed. 

Dim light filled up the study, calling attention to the fact that it was already twilight outside, but this didn’t impede Chat in seeing Mayura — who was wearing a scarlet attire instead of her usual blue one — standing at the head of the office. Next to her stood Queen Bee and sentimonster Chat Noir — whose transformation also looked like it would have been unified with the turtle Miraculous. The real Chat Noir gritted his teeth at the sight, bracing himself for the confusion that could emerge from him fighting his sentimonster self.

“Welcome at this long-awaited encounter! The only problem is, you’re one too many, dears. Well, nevermind, we’ll take care of that,” Mayura said, charging at them instantly. 

Trying to carry out her threat, she was coming for Doog Boy while Queen Bee launched her attack at Ladybug. Chat would have gladly helped them if only his sentimonster clone wasn’t swinging his baton viciously in his direction. He danced away and fought back, even feeling like he had the upper hand, being the original variant, still, he couldn’t find a grip on him. 

With a swing of his own baton he knocked down the sentimonster of its feet but that grabbed his ankle, yanking him to the floor too. They were wrestling in the middle of the room and from the unfolding silence Adrien knew that everyone was watching them, holding their breaths to distinguish the two of them and engage on the right side. 

“Too bad, you don’t know which one is yours,” Mayura laughed malevolently. She could obviously feel which Chat was under her control. 

Adrien planned to throw a well-aimed punch to overcome his opponent but it didn’t turn out that way. His enemy was faster than him and Adrien ended up under him, pinned to the floor. The sentimonster’s face lit up with malign intent, causing Chat’s stomach to drop in fear. 

“ _ I _ didn’t lose track,” Queen Bee bragged as she leaped beside them and shouted, “Venom!” just at the same time as sentimonster Chat did, “Cataclysm!” 

However, before his powered up hand would have got close to Adrien, Queen Bee confidently pierced with her spinning top, stabbing it in sentimonster Chat’s shoulder. 

“No!” Mayura shouted as his puppet froze immobile. 

However, gravitation and movement carried him forward. His hand connected with the floor just beside Adrien’s ear. As the destructive magic started to work, the floor trembled and shattered into pieces. 

The next thing Adrien knew is that they were free-falling down, down, down to the basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little detail that I didn't have time to address anywhere else, but you were maybe wondering.  
> Earlier during the party Alya got a message from Hakwmoth, threatening her family and Nino in case she couldn't figure out the identity of Ladybug and Chat Noir, who -- according to his logic that is based on the identities of the revealed temporary heroes -- are most likely part of the class.


	13. Wake up, Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Has no one told these kids that Buzzfeed's 'Top 10 things to do on a first date' list didn't feature 'fighting your arch-nemesis'?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Wake up, Sunshine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIeBPk3GwMM)

Chat Noir felt Ladybug’s familiar hand wrap around his waist as they were hurtling down to the basement of the Agreste mansion. The heroine clung to her yo-yo and planted both of them delicately on the floor, at least ten meters below street level. Adrien didn’t even know they had such a big basement.

However, looking around to survey his environment, he had to realize its ceiling height wasn't the only thing he didn’t know about this part of the house. He was standing on a metal platform and not far from him stood a peculiar looking elevator. Before him the hall was huge enough to justify its height, but it looked nothing like a normal family’s cellar. Instead of the various cardboard boxes filled with stuff, most part of the basement was occupied by a metal bridge, leading to an island that looked like an indoor garden with numerous trees. Above that, filling the opposite wall wholly, was a rose-window decorated with a curly, oddly familiar image. 

Among the trees stood a big white box and two figures, who didn’t look very pleased with the situation. One of them was a girl in a dark orange suit with a helmet that unmistakably screamed, “I have been akumatized!” The other figure was a frequent visitor in Adrien’s occasional nightmares though. He would have recognized him anywhere, even when he was wearing his scarlet outfit. It was Hawkmoth, standing with gritted teeth in the Agreste mansion’s basement. 

_ What is he even doing in our basement? _ Adrien thought, confused. However, he didn’t have much time to contemplate the matter as Mayura spoke up not far from them. 

“Sorry, Sir! The Bourgeois girl is just as useless as ever,” she spat, glaring sentimonster Queen Bee, who was under the real akumatized Chloé’s command, down with a fiery gaze. The homunculus sat on the floor a few moments longer, visibly unstrung by her previous mistake, before Mayura dismissed her from existence with a single wave of her hand. The immobilized sentimonster Chat Noir also disappeared, leaving Mayura alone with Ladybug, Chat Noir and Doog Boy on this side of the platform. 

“I don’t know what your plan was, but it just got cancelled. According to the new one,  _ you  _ give  _ us  _ your Miraculouses!” Ladybug said, stepping towards Mayura and readying her yo-yo to attack. 

Following her initiative Chat Noir and Doog Boy also set into motion but they weren’t the only ones. Hawkmoth started towards them too, but he couldn’t catch up to the other figure. The akuma moved over the bridge with the speed of light, obviously driven by her anger as she landed in front of Ladybug, snarling. 

“You think your goal is so high and mighty Lady-brag? Let me tell you, this time you’re going down for once and for all! I, Catalyst, will make sure of that!” she hissed, swinging her staff at the heroine. Her brown locks on both sides of her face dangled with the impact. 

Hawkmoth wasn’t much behind, going straight for Ladybug himself. Mayura, seizing the opportunity to get out of the limelight, stepped away and started to form a new sentimonster. Chat wanted to stop her in doing so but by this time their other enemies’ hands were barely missing Ladybug’s earrings. His heart made the decision for him as he leaped beside his partner to help repelling the attacks, giving Mayura a chance to finish her new homunculus. Sentimonster Ladybug grinned wickedly as she and Mayura ran in the heroes direction.

“Ladybug, hold tight!” Doog Boy warned them before shouting the command of his super ability. “Sonic bark!”

Chat Noir secured his hold on the railing of the platform and on Ladybug’s hand just in time, as the enormous soundwave generated by the dog hero swept past them. He heard the villains’ startled cries as they were brushed off of their feet and dashed against the back wall of the lair. 

When the soundwave died down they fell on the floor with a loud puff, but Ladybug was back on her feet instantly. She took hold of the still perplexed akuma’s staff, who most likely clung to her during the whole windstorm. She snapped it on half, freeing a black butterfly that she cleaned right away. 

The akuma transformed back, leaving a frustrated Lila kneeling before them on the platform. 

“Nooo!” she cried but Adrien wasn’t sure, she was devastated by being turned into an akuma, again, or by being defeated, repeatedly. 

“Doog Boy, take her to safety!” Ladybug ordered, wasting no time by comforting the girl. She thrusted Lila’s akumatized object, a pen, into the hero’s hand. 

“Are you sure Ladybug? Lila won’t come to any harm if she stays in the back and I could help you with those,” Doog Boy opposed, pointing at the clusmily rising supervillains, who without Lila’s akuma powers we back to their usual attires.

Ladybug stayed silent, as if weighing the gains and losses of Doog Boy’s proposition. Chat had to admit, he wasn’t looking forward to a balanced combat with their arch enemies either but civilian’s safety has always been their highest priority. This couldn’t be questioned, even if it was a civilian, that may or may not have been purposefully working with Hawkmoth. 

“Ladybug! Risking civilians’ life under any circumstances is not what we do,” he reminded her. “Take her to safety, we can handle this!” 

Doog Boy reluctantly nodded and cought the huffing Lila up in his arms before going to the elevator and stepping in to disappear from before their eyes. 

“We can do this, my Lady! Remember, it is you and me against the world. It always has been,” Chat said encouragingly, seeing how the heroine's concerned gaze was still stuck on the rising elevator. 

“Yes, you’re right!” she said, tearing her eyes apart from the lift and looking at him with a newly found determination in her eyes. “Let’s finish this, kitty!”

They exchanged a smile before starting to run on the bridge to reach the back of the lair where their foes were still trying to get their ducks in a row. 

“It’s time to finish this and tell us finally, who are you and what are you doing in Gabriel Agreste’s basement?!” Chat demanded, making an immediate dash at Hawkmoth and trying to score a hit with his baton. 

Until now, he didn’t really care who was behind the mask of the man they were fighting against. However, finding his hideout in Adrien’s own cellar made a difference; as the only logical explanation his mind could come up with was utterly unacceptable. 

Yes, Gabriel Agreste was many things. A cold and neglective father, an insensitive and control maniac fashion designer but… He couldn’t possibly be Hawkmoth too. He wouldn’t possibly terrorize a whole city, threaten innocent people until they were at the verge of breakdown and try to capture if not kill teenagers in costumes, would he?

“Despite being a cat, you really have the brains of a canary,” Hawkmoth retorted, parrying each and every one of his attacks. 

They danced around each other, looking for a suitable opportunity to land the final strike but it just didn’t come. Chat knew that he was the better fighter. He was younger, faster, stronger. He was the one out of the two of them that fought monsters like his opponent on a daily basis, while Hawkmoth stood by in his lair, laying his evil plans. Still, his racing mind made it hard to secure the steady upper hand he would have been able to do normally. 

Chat was vaguely aware that Ladybug was fighting Mayura and her brand new sentimonster somewhere nearby too, but he needed to concentrate all of his attention on the man before him. Judging by Hawkmoth’s sternly fixed gaze on him, Adrien could tell that he wasn’t alone with this difficulty. Letting their guards down for even a millisecond would have been the end of the duel. 

That was the reason why, when the villain’s gaze darted to the floor due to almost tripping over something, Chat Noir knew that it was his chance. He closed the distance between the two of them with a leap, pressing his index finger to the butterfly Miraculous at the man’s throat, while shouting, “Cataclysm!”

The jewel blasted into tiny pieces under his touch, revoking the transformation from its wielder. Adrien felt nothing and everything all at once, as his light touch shattered not only the Miraculous, but everything and anything he thinked to be true about his own life into ashes. He stumbled backwards, his brain shutting down as his eyes met Gabriel Agreste’s lightning stare. 

“It’s...” he tried to mumble out, his hand still outstretched in his father’s direction, but words weren’t capable of describing what he felt. His legs threatened to crumble under him as impressions, memories and emotions overloaded his system. Various shards of thoughts were chasing each other in his head but he couldn’t concentrate on any of those, as his brain wasn’t shutting up. “ _ it’s you, it’s you, it’s you? it’s you! it’s you?! it’s YOU?! it’s you... _ ” it kept chanting, each sentence hitting with a new wave of overwhelming emotion. 

“I know, I’m famous,” was all Gabriel Agreste said, as he reached out, grabbed Chat Noir’s hand and slid down the ring from his finger with ease. 

With foggy, puffy clouds in the place of where Adrien normally kept his battle instincts and better judgement, he reacted way too late. He jumped as far away from the man as he could but by this time he could feel the overwhelming absence on his finger. He peered down at his hand numbly, only to witness a dark green suit covering his body, utterly without any black accents. 

It was over. He lost. 

The battle. 

His ring. 

His family. 

Adrien wanted to curl up on the floor and cry. He wanted to reveal himself and beg to stop this nonsense. He wanted to shout and rage. But most of all, he wanted to beat up the man standing in front of him with a malicious grin, sliding the ring -  _ his ring _ \- onto his finger. He wanted to beat him until he gave back the only thing that was left of Adrien’s family. The only entity who supported him through thick and thin, who was there for him when he couldn’t count on anyone else, much less his own father. He wanted Plagg back, and he wanted it now.

Having nothing left to lose had its advantages. 

“Give him back!” Adrien snapped, desperately trying to cast away any urge to yield before his father’s authority. It wasn’t as hard as he first thought it would be. That man wasn’t his father anymore. Not in any meaningful way. 

“You won’t need it. As soon as my Wish is done, none of us needs to play this childish dress up anymore,” Gabriel said dismissively, securing the ring on his finger. Plagg appeared out of thin air, looked around and was just about to launch his two cents on the turns of events when his brand new wielder cut in. “Silence kwami, and eat! Let’s get this over and done with quickly.”

“What can possibly be so important that you commit to terrorizing millions of people for the sake of it?” Adrien spat, watching with angry tears in his eyes as Plagg wasn’t able to give a sound, only consume the fruit presented to him. 

Gabriel, with the kwami in his hand, casually walked up to the white box in the middle of the oasis and pressed a button on it.

“I don’t expect you to understand. The things we do, the lengths we go for true love is ineffable. For those that have never experienced it, it is inexplicable.”

Much to Adrien’s astonishment, the box’s lid slid open and a body emerged from the — he just realized — coffin. 

The woman was just like how her son remembered her to be. Kind and delicate, although utterly immobile. 

“No, you didn’t...” Adrien whispered, a new wave of tears welling in his eyes. 

He wasn’t sure, how many more surprises could his heart bear before it irrevocably tore into a million pieces. 

Learning that Hawkmoth was his f-, was Gabriel Agreste was one thing. A striking, obnoxious, baffling thing. But learning his motives made it all the more outrageous, disgustful… sensible. 

Adrien wanted to hate this man standing in front of him with every bone in his body. This man was the cause of all of his suffering, his solitude, his isolation. He was the reason why the whole city had to live in fear, always on their toes to repress the slightest wave of negative emotion before they got turned into a monster. A monster  _ Adrien  _ had to fight, sacrificing himself over and over, involuntarily forcing his partner to watch him die time and time again. 

Adrien wanted to be furious with him but how could he hate him without any second thought, when his ultimate goal was to bring back his wife. Adrien’s mother. Who was so pure and kind she could have been the embodiment of sunshine. Who loved them both unconditionally. Whose absence crossed Adrien’s mind weekly, leaving a stilling but constantly present ache in the back of his mind. 

How could have Adrien resisted the temptation to get her back, how could any of them? Even if it meant bending the rules a little bit, even if it meant looking in the other direction, wasn’t the goal still worth it? Powers that granted a wish were invented to wish with them. And what could have been more a sacred desire, than restoring something perfect?

Deeply lost in his thoughts, Adrien didn’t even register Gabriel calling out the words, “Claws out!”

* * *

Marinette would have never thought that, on the day she finally got together with Adrien, she'd be fighting her one-time idol and future father-in-law, Gabriel Agreste. Who also happened to be her arch enemy. Whose real goal was to bring Adrien’s mother, who was kept in a coffin in the basement for the past three years, back to life. 

A first date they would never,  _ ever  _ forget, that’s for sure. 

If Marinette could do as her heart desired, she would have paused the fight long ago to cast away every responsibility and pull Adrien into a tight embrace and never let him go. However, Ladybug had a job to accomplish. She had to defeat their enemies one final time, before she could concentrate on repairing what was left after their devastating rampage. 

When she was finally able to seize the sentimonster’s object, who she was fighting all this time, she threw it in the water surrounding the island. She ignored Mayura’s further attacks altogether and sprinted back to the center of action. 

“Chat, are you okay?” she asked her partner worriedly but there was no response. Adrien stood stock-still, his stare frozen on the coffin. 

“It’s nice of you to drop in, Ladybug. I think you have something that belongs to me,” Gabriel Agreste grinned at her from behind his black cat mask. The sight made Marinette feel sick.

“I think it’s actually the other way around,” she retorted. 

Adrien was still unmoving, Gabriel and Mayura on the other hand started to surround her. If there was a point in time when she needed her ladybug luck, this was it. 

“Lucky Charm!” she exclaimed, throwing her yo-yo in the air. In the next moment a pair of red and black spotted scissors landed in her hands. 

Ladybug looked around frowning, searching for a clue to how to save the day, but nothing seemed to spark an idea, until… Her gaze fell on the coffin that was most likely an advanced medical equipment and kept Emilie Agreste’s body from dying. A modern medical tool that was powered by electricity. Ladybug sighted the cord of the machine and it lit up in the familiar dotted pattern just before the scissors in her hands did, sending a wave of realization through her system.

A barely audible  _ no _ was all she managed before her legs gave in and buckled under her. She couldn’t tear her eyes apart from the cable that lit up with growing intensity, as if trying to convince her to do it. To carry out the one and only plan that could still save the day. To cut the cord keeping Emilie Agreste alive. 

_ They must keep her like this, between life and death for a reason. If she’s irrecoverably dead, even the Ultimate Wish can’t save her. No wish, no problem, _ a high pitched, demure voice kept whispering in her ear.  _ It isn’t murder, she isn’t alive already as it is.  _

* * *

Adrien had imagined in his mind’s eye, what the happy, reunited picture of his family would look like. It wasn’t hard, as he has visualized it many times. His father smiling down at him and his mother laughing with her head thrown back. 

But somehow, for the first time in forever, the image didn’t look right. Gabriel Agreste has never smiled at him that way. His smiles and endearing gesture were always secluded for his mother. And Emilie… Emilie loved him but not with that fiery passion that he saw in her eyes now. He has only once seen that look before, and he knew very well that he could never forget the bluebell eyes that looked at him like that.

The perfect image of his family wasn’t a memory. It was a picture created by his imagination that he dreamed about so often, it almost appeared to be real. But it never was. And with Hawkmoth being the man standing in place of his father, and his mother resurrected from the dead, it could never be. 

The warm family that he yearned after wasn’t waiting for him in the past. It didn’t involve magic wishes either. An unconditionally loving family was no more than a promise of the future. His most earnest hope, that with trust, communication, and hard work, it was possible to be achieved. But to experience a future like that, the world had to have a… future of any kind, to put it simply. 

There was no telling what terrible price the Ultimate Wish would demand, and in Adrien’s opinion, it was safer not to find out. Whether it inflicted tragedy on global or on local levels, his personal prospects were not ideal. 

This was one of the many reasons why upon forcing his mind back to perceiving the events happening around him, a cold jolt of fear ran down his spine to the sight of Ladybug kneeling on the lair’s floor.

* * *

Marinette knew very well that what the voice in her head told her wasn’t true. It  _ was  _ murder, regardless of Emilie’s current state. It  _ was  _ utterly wrong, never mind the circumstances, the consequences. Not a single thing about this so-called plan was right. 

_ Risking civilians’ life under any circumstances is not what we do, _ Adrien’s words from not more than ten minutes ago echoed in her ear, as if to give her a final push, to solidify her resolve. 

Marinette didn’t want to accept, this is how it ends. She didn’t want to quit, to surrender, to abandon her city in the most dire need. She didn’t want to admit that all the fighting, all the suffering, all the sacrifices were in vain. 

But she had no other option. Not a real one. It all came down to a single decision. A decision that was already made for her. 

Maybe she was being pathetic. Maybe Master Fu would be disappointed in her. Maybe she was weak and couldn’t act like a real hero had to, pursuing her responsibilities at every cost, even if it ate her up from the inside. Maybe all of this was true but even then, she couldn’t do what the Lucky Charm asked her to.

How could she throw all the values she ever stood for  — protecting the innocents and fighting for those who couldn’t fight for themselves  — under the bus just like that? How could she sacrifice even a single soul to escape her own faults? How could she kill Adrien’s mother, just because a stupid jewel that didn’t want a new wielder told her to? 

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Even if it meant losing the battle they were fighting for years. Even if it meant her identity being exposed. Even if everyone would hate her for letting Hawkmoth win. She couldn’t do it. 

The scissors landed on the floor with a metallic dump.

Silent tears were running down Marinette’s cheeks as she reached up to unclip her earrings. 

“I’m sorry, Tikki. I’ve failed you,” she whispered to the appearing little kwami in her palms. Tikki looked up at her with unbelievably wide eyes but before she would have time to respond, Marinette threw the earrings to Gabriel Agreste’s feet. 

* * *

Adrien blinked one. And he blinked some more, to banish the unthinkable picture from before his eyes. But it wouldn’t go away. 

He heard the Lucky Charm’s metallic dump and saw Marinette, wearing her bee and  _ only  _ her bee transformation, kneeling on the floor but he didn’t want to believe his senses. He couldn’t understand, why were tears running down the girl’s cheeks. He couldn’t understand, why did she just shove the ladybug earrings to Gabriel’s feet. 

“What an unexpected turns of events. Honestly, I thought you were tougher than this but it looks like I overestimated both of you,” the man said with doubt in his eyes but he picked up the earrings nevertheless.

_ Why would she give up? Why didn’t she fight the odds, the impossible situation we have triumphed over so many times before? _ There were too many ‘whys’ chasing after each other in Adrien’s head. But in the end, none of them mattered right now. The only thing that still held meaning was fighting with anything he had. With the ladybug Miraculous gone, there was only one card left up in his sleeve, so he had to play it right.

“Now why don’t we get to know each other a little better while Gabriel prepares the Wish. You could start for example with your names,” Mayura said in the full knowledge of her victory, nearing Marinette.

“Over my dead body!” Adrien spit, finally finding his voice again. With a leap he was at Marinette’s side, pulling her up from the floor, to hug her to himself protectively. “Shelter!” he shouted, creating a defensive bubble around the two of them, as Mayura wasn’t backing down. 

“My Mayura, we’ll deal with them later. Now we have more important matters to attend to,” Gabriel said, seemingly giddy with joy at the sight of Tikki almost being ready to transform again. 

“Yes, Sir!” Mayura finally retreated, going to the medical machine to check a few numbers instead. 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Adrien asked in a veiled voice before summoning all the power left in him and saying in his last exasperation. “Don’t forget, the Wish comes with a terrible price.” 

“Do you think I act just as much driven by my impulses, as you kids do? Don’t be ridiculous. I have it all figured out. There is nothing I wouldn’t gladly sacrifice for my dearest Emilie,” Gabriel hissed, as if finding the proposition itself offensive. 

“Nothing you say? What about your son?” Adrien pressed himself to ask. He tightened his grip on Marinette but even the girl’s presence couldn’t stop his body’s trembling. 

“Nothing! He  _ is  _ nothing. Always has been. Emilie was the one who wanted a child so desperately, not me. If he brings her back to existence, at least her desperate desire to have an offspring wasn’t in vain,” Gabriel said coldly. 

Adrien felt his last hope evaporate with the words. The boiling blood in his veins being replaced with ice cold acid. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He really shouldn’t have been. Those words shouldn’t have hurt this much. But they did. Even if they only confirmed what deep down he already knew. Those words were the final nail in the coffin of the happy picture of his family. 

But that was fine. You couldn’t mourn what you never had, could you? You shouldn’t have been able to. 

“You don’t think that the magic would hurt you? That can’t be...” Marinette whispered to him in panic. 

By her expression it was evident, it never even crossed her mind that Adrien could come to any harm by the execution of the Ultimate Wish. When in reality, that was a very likely outcome. If an equivalent exchange was to take place, what else could Gabriel sacrifice for his wife than his only son? Even if he didn’t — by a long shot — felt the same way about them. 

“Tell him!” Marinette demanded, going crazy with despair. 

“No,” Adrien said resignedly. His last ace  — his own persona  — was useless. Even their last resort was gone. There was no point in fighting the inevitable any longer. “You’ve heard him. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters apart from his delusional fantasies anymore.” He reached out to wipe down a runaway teardrop from under Marinette’s mask. “It’s alright though. It was always like that, I just never realized.” 

“Plagg, Tikki, unify!” they heard being cried out but neither of them bothered to pay a second of their precious time to the events going down anymore.

“If this is really the end, I’m glad you’re here with me, my Lady,” Adrien said, pushing all the warmth into his voice that he could find in himself. He felt Marinette blurring some moisture on his face with her fingers as she reached up.

“I’m so sorry, I have never thought… I shouldn’t have… It isn’t fair if it ends like this,” she quavered, searching for the right words, but there were none.

“Life is like that. It is what it is.” 

Adrien wanted to smile down at her but he wasn’t sure, he succeeded. 

“I love you, Chaton! Come what may, I always will,” she whispered, cupping his face gently. She looked him in the eyes affectionately, trying to convey all emotions she didn’t have time to express otherwise with a single stare, before pulling him in for an impossibly tight hug. 

“I love you, too!” 

Adrien squeezed her gently trembling body like being close enough to her could rearrange their lucky stars, like it could change the rotation of the Earth, the outcome of the Wish. 

He wanted his last thoughts to be about her, so he brought back the memory of their previous kiss, the times they had ice-cream together, the countless patrols and hugs. The memory of friendly teasing and soulfelt, late-night conversations on Marinette’s balcony. The memory of lunch breaks when they laughed until their sides hurt and the two times this magnificent girl confessed her love to him. The memory of the numerous crazy plans and adventures they had as the unbeatable superhero duo of Paris. The memory of the first day he met her and knew instantly that he’d love her until the end of his life. 

He had never thought it would be so soon.

If it was possible, he tensed even more as he heard the Ultimate Wish being called out and felt the powerful swirl of magic sweep over him. But the world didn’t want to end just yet. 

Seconds passed and Adrien tentatively peered out from under his lashes. He was still standing in the lair, hugging Marinette. He felt her face that was sticky with tears pressed against his chest. He took a deep breath and let her go. The world was in one piece and he was fine. Adrien has never been so ecstatic about being fine. 

“You’re okay?” Marinette half stated, half asked.

Adrien nodded, silently searching for the answer, that he shortly found. 

Emilie Agreste was sitting in the coffin, appearing slightly pale and dizzy but most definitely alive. Next to her stood her husband, who wasn’t paying any more attention to her. He was staring, with horror in his eyes, at the floor on his other side, where Mayura laid, seemingly unconscious. 

“Nathalie!” he cried out, getting on his knees beside the woman, shaking her by her shoulders.

_ Nathalie! _ echoed in Adrien’s ears. Of course, who else would have it been. He felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. There was no other person on the earth who would have knowingly complied with Gabriel’s desperate plan. And the most twisted detail was that Adrien knew, she didn’t do it for fame, for money or out of sheer loyalty. She did it because she loved Gabriel more than her life, and the man loved her back. At least, he loved her more than his own son. 

Adrien wanted to feel something, anything, towards the woman who he once thought could be his second mother. He wanted to feel sorrow or anger or betrayal. But there was no place left for those feelings in his tired, anguished heart. 

“Let’s finish this,” he said quietly before dropping the shelter around them.

Marinette silently nodded and did what both of them know was the only thing left to do. She walked up to the kneeling, frantic Gabriel and touched her spinning top to his shoulder. “Venom.”

The man froze instantly, with a distorted, maniac expression on his face. 

“Excuse me, but who do you think you are and what are you doing to my husband?” Emilie started indignantly, seemingly ignoring the fact that she was dead for the past three years, altogether. 

“Chat?” Marinette looked at him questioningly, handing him the opportunity to tell the woman as much or as little as he wanted. 

But the thing Adrien wanted was to run up to his mother and hug her tightly, to make up for all the lost years. To lose himself in the familiar embrace, to inhale the rose scent she always carried, to hear the tingling laughter he so dearly missed. However, he didn’t know whether he had the authority to do so. Her presence here was against his better judgement. If it would have been up to him, he wouldn’t have wished her back. Because he wanted to act like the hero he believed himself to be, or because he was too much of a coward to give his life for his mother’s, he wasn’t sure. But right now the reasons didn’t matter. The only thing — beside being present as Chat Noir and not Adrien — that did was his final decision, that clouded any possible happiness about his mother’s presence. 

“I’m sorry to inform you madam but… but we...” Adrien started in a formal manner but couldn’t finish his sentence. Emilie’s inquiring eyes met his and he buckled under her stare.

It was so familiar, still so alien at the same time. The look she gave him wasn’t the one he remembered receiving as a kid. It wasn’t warm and caring but distant and calculating. It wasn’t the look of a mother but the look of a strategist, trying to analyze the situation. It surprised Adrien, even though it was perfectly normal, as he reminded himself. His mother wasn’t seeing him, she saw a pair of strangers assaulting her husband.

The woman turned her gaze away from him but he couldn’t do the same. He stared at her with wide eyes, drinking in her presence. The way the slightly wrinkled suit seemed a little big on her, the way the skin on her hands was cracked, her cheeks hollowed. It was evident that three years of laying in a coffin did a number on her but her voice still sounded powerful, determined. 

Adrien was vaguely aware that the conversation went on around him, that Ladybug took back their Miraculouses, that new heroes arrived but he couldn’t concentrate on any of that until hearing his name being called out brought him back from his spiraling thoughts. 

“...dude, no! Adrien’s going to be devastated. How are we going to tell him?”

“Don’t tell him yourselves, if I may ask,” Emilie said, climbing down gracefully from the medical machine. She smoothed down the wrinkles on her suit before looking the heroes sternly in the eye. “He’s my son, I’ll know how to present the information best to him.”

“Of course, madam,” Adrien replied, finding his voice. 

He was giddy with joy at the thought that her mother wanted to settle things on the way that was best for him. By herself. Maybe he didn’t dare to wish her back but now, that she was here, he couldn’t deny the warm feeling her sheer presence stirred up in him. His memories didn’t betray him in this one, her mother was truly sunshine extraordinaire.

“Guys, could you take Mr. and Mrs. Agreste to the ground floor? We’ll follow suit with Chat shortly.”

The temporary heroes complied with the request, although staring at Adrien’s mother with disbelief in their eyes. They disappeared from before the duo’s eyes just as Adrien’s Miraculous cried its last beep and his transformation evaporated. 

He silently took the ring of the black cat from Marinette’s outstretched palm and slid it back to its place on his finger with a relieved sigh. Plagg, and a few seconds later Tikki appeared in the air but their holders needed to catch them, as they didn’t seem to be conscious. 

“Wayzz, is this normal? Are they alright?” Adrien asked on the verge of panicking again. He had no idea what would he do if on top of everything, Plagg would have come to any harm during their bumpy mission. 

“They will be fine!” the other kwami assured them. “It takes a lot of power to carry out the Ultimate Wish but they will be back to normal within a few days.”

Adrien nodded in relief, deliberately forcing his heart to calm down. They offered some of Plagg’s and Tikki’s treats to the other two kwamis, who would be able to transform them and conceal their identities until they arranged everything that was left for them to do. 

Adrien bet that by this time the house was full of cops and reporters who all wanted in on the night’s story. And despite the fact that even the thought of dealing with them now made him want to throw up, as a superhero, he had responsibilities. Which meant that he had to go up there and calm the public.

He was busy trying to think up viable answers to all of their possible questions, so he wouldn’t froze down and panic on the spot, when he felt Marinette’s light touch on his shoulders. He looked up to meet her soft gaze that was full of concern and affection. 

“I know that right now you are not okay, but that’s alright,” she started. “It’s okay not to be okay. No one would expect you to be. But I need you to know that I’m here for you. I always will be!”

“Thanks,” he said with a weak smile. He really appreciated her concern and they were out to have a long and heavy conversation about everything, but now was not the time for that. Now he needed to-, ha had to-, he was obliged to-

As if reading his mind behind his haunted gaze, Marinette interjected, preventing his thoughts to spiral any further. “You should go and find your mother. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about. I’ll handle the police and the press, you don’t need to worry about that,” she said with a serious expression, squeezing his shoulders. 

“Would you do that for me?” he stared at her in surprise.

“That isn’t even a question, Adrien,” she said softly, pressing a quick peck on his cheek. “It’s the least I can do. Without Tikki I can’t restore the house to its original form but I’ll make sure to get everyone out of here as soon as possible, so you can be alone.”

“Thank you, Marinette!” Adrien felt eternally grateful that he didn’t need to do this on his own. That from now on, she would always be there for him. “But… I don’t want to stay alone. And I certainly don’t want to stay here. I  _ can’t _ stay here. Would it be alright if…?”

She just smiled, understanding him perfectly even without words. Like she always did. 

“Sure, Chaton. I know just the perfect place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is literally titled 'Wake up, Sunshine'. Did you — did I — think it could end any other way?
> 
> The last chapter comes this Sunday. Until then, take care and don't forget, comments are always highly appreciated!


	14. Summer daze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the last chapter! It's time to find closure after everything that has happened.  
> [Summer daze](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFLfQKgS_Hk) at its finest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million and one thanks to [Clare](https://1kiss4surrender.tumblr.com/) and [Missnoodles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missnoodles/pseuds/Missnoodles) for betaing this piece and for supporting me along the way! I couldn’t have written this fic in its current form if it wasn’t for them, and their unwavering help with putting the plot and the emotions in their place! 
> 
> Let’s also not forget about the most friendly and supportive online community I ever had the chance to encounter, the [Miraculous Fanworks Discord](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) server. For all the support of the members of the server, and to the founders for making the existence of such a place possible in the first place: Thank you!
> 
> And last but not least, thank you to you, dear readers, for following this story until the very end! I’m truly grateful for all the kudos and comments you left on this piece and I hope you enjoyed it at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Adrien found that the Agreste mansion was quiet. Way too quiet, if he regarded all of the night’s events. By the time he detransformed and went down to the hall, there was only a single police cab parked in front of the house with an additional ambulance. No sign of police helicopters, reporters from every possible magazine and TV station in the city and even the army was missing from his front yard. This was not how he imagined the scene after Hawkmoth’s capture would look like. 

However, he didn’t have much time to evaluate the situation, as arriving at the bottom of the stairs, a familiar voice called his name.

“Adrien?” 

He knew very well who he’d meet, still, the way his name fell from his mother’s lips made electricity run down his spine. His heart skipped a beat as he turned in the voice’s direction. There she was, stepping out of Gabriel’s office, with a blanket spread on her shoulders. 

“Mom!” he exclaimed and in the next second he was clinging to her neck, burying his face to her soft hair over the blanket. 

“Adrien. My Adrien,” the woman repeated, returning the embrace. 

“Mom, I missed you so much!” he mumbled into her neck.

“I missed you too, sweetheart!” his mother said, before gently pushing him away to look him over. “You’ve changed so much! My little Adrien is all grown up!”

“Yeah, it’s been three years,” he said, scratching the nape of his neck uncomfortably before progressing to the questions he probably would have proposed if he hadn’t known the answer to them.“What happened? Where have you been?”

“It’s a long story, darling. What matters is that I’m here now,” Emilie answered with a perfect smile, squeezing his shoulders. 

Adrien frowned, stepping away so he could see the woman better. “Are you seriously not going to tell me, why did you vanish three years ago and come back miraculously now? Mother, I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle whatever it is,” he said, casting a persuasive look at her. He was silently pleading to put her trust in him and share the bad news. To rip off the bandaid on the spot, so he didn’t need to pretend he didn’t know about anything anymore.

Instead, Emilie laughed. 

“Don’t be ridiculous Adrien, of course I’m going to tell you all about it!” she said with a gentle smile, stroking a strand of hair out of his face. “But it’s a really lengthy story and I don’t feel very well.”

“But Mother! I need to know what happened to you!” he begged, surprising even himself with how much the unspoken words weighed heavy on his heart, making him feel uneasy. He didn’t want to postpone their talk any longer.

“Adrien! I’m not in the condition to tell it right now,” she said, eyebrows furrowed but they soonly unwrinkled and she was smiling down at him with a soft expression. “Sweetheart, I’m really tired. You can understand that, right?” 

Adrien nodded instinctively. Looking at his mother’s exhausted expression, that wasn’t hard to believe. And even if there was more to the story, he had to understand that his mother needed time to process the information herself, before finding the appropriate way to tell him, he reasoned. Maybe it was even for the better, if she got some rest before starting that emotionally tiring conversation. 

“Actually, the doctors even see it necessary that I stay in the hospital until they run a few tests. Nothing serious, just a check up. It will only take a couple of days,” Emilie went on. ”They wanted to take me already but I wouldn’t go until I met you.”

“They want to take you? But you only got back!” Adrien protested automatically. However, thinking about his mother’s health condition he had to admit, it was a sheer miracle in itself that she could walk after being unconscious for years. It was probably a rather sensible thing that the doctors didn’t want to leave her without proficient medical help. It would have been rather selfish of him to insist on his story  — one that he already knew  — at the expense of her health. 

“Okay,” he said finally, gulping. He peered up at her from under his lashes to ask timidly, “But do you promise you will tell me everything after you feel better?”

“Of course, darling! I’ll tell you everything when I get back! Don’t worry, it’ll be just a few days. And after that, we’ll spend as much time together, as you want!” she smiled at Adrien and placed a hand on his shoulder before changing the topic. “Does George still work for us?”

“Yes, he does.”

“Good. Could you please ring him up and ask to stay at him for the weekend in my name? I wouldn’t want you to stay alone in this huge house,” she said.

“Sure, Mom,” Adrien answered, thinking back to the numerous weekends he spent at the silent bodyguard’s home in the past, while his parents were out on business trips. This tradition ceased in the last years, as Gabriel seemed to never leave his office anymore, but of course, Emilie couldn’t know that. Adrien decided that she’d be informed about this fact and his whereabouts this weekend when she told him all about her story, as she promised. 

“We’ll see each other again very soon, I promise, darling!” Emilie ensured, pressing a featherlight kiss on his crown. She started at the main entrance but stopped midway to smile back at her son. “I love you, Adrien!”

“I love you too, Mom!” 

* * *

Adrien didn’t know what to expect when  — after Ladybug ushered everyone out of the house and grudgingly went with the officers  — he got a text from her to meet up at the Eiffel Tower. He surely didn’t think they'd ascend to even more unbelievable heights than they usually did, scaling the building until they reached the very top. 

“We’re here,” Marinette declared, hopping on an open balcony that ran all around the Tower’s tip. 

“Here?” Adrien asked, frowning his eyebrows in confusion behind his mask. 

When he vocalized his wish to spend the night away from the mansion, he meant maybe Marinette’s living room. It was only later that he realized, with her room still being under construction, that was the place where the girl herself slept, so it was out of the question. However, by that time they agreed on the meeting point and Adrien wasn’t going to let down  _ his girlfriend _ on their first date. 

Better yet: was this even a date? Seeking shelter after you wrecked your own house fighting your arch nemesis didn’t feel too romantic of an occasion, but how was he supposed to know? He was even left without Plagg’s usually not too helpful directions, and he didn’t feel comfortable sharing his silly concerns with Wayzz. So he was left in the dark about the nature of the meeting that he departed to a few minutes ago with the Miracle Box under his arm. 

“Here!” Marinette smiled and pushed in a door on the Tower that, in the dark, avoided Adrien’s attention by this time. 

“Wow, I didn’t even know this was here!” the boy marveled, following his girlfriend, who upon stepping into the room switched on the lights, into the tiny apartment. It was decorated with paisley wallpaper and furnished with wooden pieces that told stories about a long gone age. However, the room’s most spectacular element was the old fashioned elevator that occupied most of the space. “It’s amazing! How did you get this place?”

“I called in a favour,” Marinette beamed, setting her basket on a little table at the center of the room. “Being the superheroine of Paris has certain advantages.”

“So does dating the superheroine of Paris, it figures,” Adrien grinned at her, pressing a light kiss onto her crown. 

“I could get used to you saying that,” she giggled.

“I can say it every day, if you want to,” he offered beaming, sheerly out of politeness. Totally not because his insides fluttered to pronouncing those words. “But I bet it won’t take a very long time until you get used to it. Maybe in a few months you’ll even get tired of me repeating it!”

“Doubtful,” Marinette smirked back at him. 

They dropped their transformations and Adrien tucked away the Miraculouses in the box while Marinette packed out a handful of pastries, a carton of orange juice and two glasses.

“I thought you might want to eat something. These aren’t fresh but they were the best I could lay my hands on without drawing my parents’ attention and having to explain why I wasn’t at the sleepover,” the girl apologized as they sat down on the nearby pull-out couch. 

“It’s perfect, Marinette, thank you!”

They sat in silence for a while, munching away on their croissants and Adrien wondered, how does one even start a conversation like this? 

“I can’t believe our basement is that huge!”

Yeah, probably not like that. 

Marinette let out an amused chuckle before clearing her throat and plastering a serious expression. “How is your Mom? Could you talk with her?”

“Yes. She needs to stay at the hospital for a few days and we’ll have the Talk after that. At least, that's what she said,” he shrugged as he kicked off his shoes and pulled his legs up to his chest. 

“Do you not believe her?” she asked, eyebrows raised. 

“Honestly, I don’t know if I can. She seemed very secretive and defensive. I don’t think she really wants to tell me,” Adrien said flatly, gazing into the air unblinkingly before redirecting his stare to the girl sitting next to him. “Not like that would protect me from anything, really, but she doesn’t know that.”

When back in the lair he enthusiastically agreed to “not to tell Adrien about the whole situation”, he wasn’t anticipating at all, that it wouldn’t be his mother’s first move to share the details with him. He didn’t think that he’d have to pretend not to know anything  — at least  — for days. And it was clear that if Emilie wished to keep up this situation of ignoring the elephant in the room for a long time, the only thing it would ensure was distrust and a communication barrier between the two of them. Just when Adrien thought, he had gotten rid of the walls separating him from the most important people in his life, the game was back on. 

“Maybe she just doesn’t know how to tell you yet. However, even if it takes some time, I’m sure she’ll come around,” Marinette said, placing a comforting hand on his knee. “If there is one thing I know about your mother, that is that she really cares about you. I’m confident, eventually she’ll make the right decision.” 

As Adrien only hummed to himself, she added, “And if she doesn’t, you can still tell her that you know. I doubt that Nino would be able to shut up about it for too long anyway,” she said playfully. 

“I guess you’re right,” he sighed with a small smile, throwing back his head. “I just don’t know what to make of this whole situation. I got so used to her not being here... I can’t imagine how everything is going to go now. Will we have dinner together and will she take me to school, or will it be just like when she wasn’t around?”

“I know that this is all new now, Adrien, but don’t forget! You don’t need to have everything figured out on the spot.” Marinette huddled up next to him, hugging him with both arms as she pressed a kiss on his cheek. “You’ll have plenty of time to talk through everything and solve the problems. And sometimes, with time, things fall into place involuntarily.”

Adrien smiled at her as he returned the embrace. “Thank you, Marinette!” 

Beside all his uncertainties, Adrien knew one thing for sure. His relationship with his mother couldn’t go back to the way it was three years ago. He was nowhere near the little kid she left behind then, so really, there was nothing to go back to. But that was alright. Even if he couldn’t tell right now how Emilie would fit into his life, or he into hers, they had all the time to figure it out. And uncertainty was nearly not as scary when you had a secure point in your life, a peaceful shore to return to after exploring on tempestuous waters. 

However, Adrien also knew that he wasn’t done exploring yet. It would have been so easy to lean into the warm caress and forget all about the storms that tore the sea of his soul for only one night, but it wouldn’t have done any good. There were still great things unsaid, monumental questions unanswered, that he had to address sooner rather than later to achieve the quietude he yearned for.

So he pressed a kiss onto Marinette’s forehead and let her go in favour of settling back on the couch next to her. He let his mind wander, take him to all the matters that still bothered him. To all the unresolved issues he didn’t have time to properly think through in the thick of the battle. To all the unaddressed feelings that were bubbling deep inside him, only waiting for a calm moment to surface. So Adrien back sat with his legs pulled up to his chest and let the different waves of overwhelming emotions wash over him. 

It all started with questions. It all started with frustration. 

“It’s just… There are so many things, I still don’t understand! Like, how did she end up sick in the first place? How did  _ he  _ know about the Miraculouses and the Wish? And why…” 

However, it swiftly turned into anger as he paused and sat in silence, his hands slowly clenching into fists over his knees. 

It wasn’t fair on so many levels! Gabriel wasn’t supposed to be Hawkmoth! He wasn’t supposed to be a supervillain, ready to give up everything he has ever had for a wish to get back his wife! Whatever happened, he wasn’t supposed to look his son in the eye and tell him that he was worthless! 

That he was expendable.

“He should have just accepted that she was gone and move on! That was all he had to do! If I could do it, why couldn’t he?! He even had Nathalie, why couldn’t he just move on?!” Adrien cried, angry tears running down his cheeks. 

“It’s okay, I’m here,” he heard Marinette’s whisper and leaned back into her touch as she pulled him into a secure embrace. She rested her forehead on his trembling head, her hair falling down around them, sheltering them from the outworld. Time ceased as it was only her vanilla scent, soothing touches and words that filled their private bubble. 

Adrien couldn’t exactly tell how much time passed until his body’s shaking subsided, until the trickling tears stopped. It was still some time after that, until he was able to breathe evenly again and look up at Marinette, who was massaging soothing circles onto his back relentlessly. 

“Don’t take it the wrong way,” he said, voice still husky. He cleared his throat and drew apart just so he could wipe his cheeks with the back of his hands and collect himself before facing her and continuing. “I’m happy that Mother’s back. But we were about to lose and I… I wouldn’t have taken the risk,” he admitted with a flaming face, fixing his stare on his hands that were uselessly fidgeting on his lap. “I’ve accepted that she’s gone and now, that she is back, I can’t help but feel guilty because I was fighting against this all along.”

“Adrien, none of this is your fault. You only did what you thought was the right thing,” the girl said, taking his hand.

“No, Marinette, you don’t understand,” he shook his head, still not meeting her eyes. “During the battle, when it turned out that Hawkmoth is…” He paused, taking a deep breath. “There was a moment when I thought that maybe we could bring Mom back and it’d be fine. That a reunited, happy family was going to be worth the prize, whatever that is. But then I realized that that was never going to happen. And the moment passed. And I was ready to fight against him, and sacrifice her, and then you…” His eyes, that were burning with questions and desperation, shot up to finally meet hers. “You chose to give it all up.”

“I…” Marinette recoiled a little before shaking her head resignedly. “It wasn’t a real choice. I was standing there with the Lucky Charm that wanted me to sacrifice your mother. The magnificent grand plan was to  _ kill  _ her, Adrien.” 

She stared at him with horror written all over her face. Adrien started back in a similar manner. He had no idea what to say to that. He had never even entertained the thought that the Lucky Charm could come up with a plan that was so utterly unacceptable. That in certain situations, the only way to achieve a seemingly mighty goal led through terrible actions. 

“Until then, I thought that I could do whatever it takes to defeat Hawkmoth. That I would do anything because the outcome would worth any kind of sacrifice. But it didn’t. And I couldn’t.” 

She looked away, releasing his hands and letting hers fall down to her side.

Adrien stared at her with eyes as big as tennis balls. Even thought he was ready to let his mother stay unconscious, actively contributing to her death… That was an entirely different business. He surely wouldn’t have been able to do it and even the thought of Marinette taking such a burden to herself scared him to death. No, she did the only heroic thing that she could in a situation like that. Lost with her head held high. But if this was the case... in the end, did they really lose? 

“You were really brave, Marinette. You did the right thing!” 

Marinette sniffled and Adrien couldn’t bear the distance she put between the two of them. He grabbed her by her elbows, pulling her to himself until she was sitting on his lap, straddling him with her arms around his neck and burying her face into him.

“But we still lost,” she mumbled.

“I don’t think that we did,” he said slowly, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Not that we won, either. But no one did.”

They sat there in silence for a while, hugging each other, as if trying to stop the world from falling apart. But it already did. So the only thing left to do was to put it back together. Slowly, piece by piece. 

Adrien didn’t even notice when did he start to hum a peaceful tune, only when Marinette grabbed him by his shoulder and pushed him a little further to look at him with her nose cutely scrunched up. 

“I don’t like that song,” she pouted. “It’s sad and isn’t even true.”

“But my Lady! It’s the rework!” Adrien stated in fake indignation before starting to sing the melancholic melody out loud with a smile on his lips.  _ “Little kitty on the roof, not alone for he has his lady.” _

Marinette’s eyes shone up as if beacons freshly set on fire. She wasn’t waiting for the song to be continued, rather smashed her lips against Adrien’s, taking him by surprise. 

Adrien hummed a few more notes against her lips but forgot all about the song rapidly as the girl’s mouth started to move against his with great intensity. Her hands tangled in his hair, her body pressed against his as she leaned onto him. It didn’t take long before Adrien kissed her back just as eagerly, cupping her face with one hand while resting the other one on her back, pulling her as close as he could. 

This kiss was nothing like the sweet one they shared at the party, that was only a few hours ago, even if it felt like an alternate reality. This kiss was forceful and hungry, channelling the intense emotions that piled up in both of them since then. Setting free the worries and fears they had for the fate of all of Paris, for their own and the other’s lives. 

This kiss was a declaration. A vow of always and forever. An assurance of never-ceasing trust, support and companionship. A promise of happier, better times. Times that started now. 

When Marinette tried to draw away, Adrien leaned after her, following her body with his before breaking the kiss eventually. They were both panting, out of breath, but her bright smile and shining eyes would be even worth succumbing for. 

“I feel like you don’t even want to hear the rest of my epos,” Adrien remarked mockingly. 

“Oh, but I do! Please do tell! I’ll behave!” she countered with a smirk on her charming face that she must have stolen from Chat Noir himself. 

“Well, if you insist...” 

Adrien cleared his throat before starting the song again. However, he didn’t even get over the first line when  _ someone  _ leaned onto him, pressing a teasing kiss at the corner of his mouth.

“That’s it, I’m done!” he exclaimed as he jumped up from the couch, before taking a swift back turn and leaning down to press a lingering kiss on his surprised girlfriend’s lips. 

“Liar,” she murmured against his mouth, grinning, before Adrien drew away and straightened.

“Fight me,” he shrugged with a shit-eating grin right before realization hit him. “You know what? I take it back. Please don’t!”

No one in their right mind would have wanted to fight Ladybug herself. 

“I’ll think about it, kitty. I’ll think about it,” she grinned, tapping her chin conspiratorially before breaking out in a fit of giggles. 

Adrien just shook his head, smirking and went to the table to spill orange juice to the two glasses before handing one of them to Marinette. He leaned back to the edge of the table, staring into his juice as he took a sip absentmindedly. 

This was how he started every day in the past years. Sipping a glass of orange juice while Nathalie laid out his schedule for the day. However, that was nothing but a memory now. No more schedules set by Gabriel, no more Nathalie. 

And even if he won’t miss the first one, Nathalie was a prominent person in his life without a doubt. True, she was loyal to Gabriel quite literally until the very end, enforcing all his rules and wishes, but once, Adrien saw a chance of her becoming more to them than an assistant. Not a partner-in-crime or a paschal lamb, that she eventually became, but an integral part of the family. 

However, that was all in the past now, so he washed the bitter taste of blame and pangs of conscience down his throat with the rest of the juice. Even if he wished that she’d still be alive, that she wouldn’t have died as a result of his own failure as a hero, there was no point of mulling over the unalterable.

Nonetheless, be that as it may, he still couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself.

“Do you think Nathalie knew what she was getting herself into?” he asked, peering at Marinette as he put down his glass.

“Mayura wasn’t under Hawkmoth’s magic in any way. She must have had,” she said, meeting his gaze, so they could see eye to eye.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he hummed. “Even though, I can’t help but wonder if I could have done something differently. If I could have saved her somehow.” He ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation

“She chose this path. I’m sure she was aware of the risk but either, she thought it was unlikely that she’d come to any harm, or she was okay with whatever sacrifice she had to make,” Marinette pointed out with a serious expression, getting up from the couch to step next to him. “Either way, her fate isn’t your fault, Adrien. It’s no one’s but Hawkmoth’s. You didn’t make him make that Wish.”

“I know but…” he trailed off before continuing with a newly found fire in his voice. “It just wasn’t supposed to end like this! It would have been so much easier if Hawkmoth was a local maniac who was after world domination! We would have kicked his butt and then it would have been over,” he cried angrily, throwing his hands in the air as he pushed himself away from the table. “I have always thought it’d be like that! Not this mess!”

He crossed the room in a few impetuous steps and came back, standing in front of his girlfriend with open arms and a pained expression. 

“I just wish… Maybe we could have… If we did something differently maybe...”

“What would you change?” Marinette inquired after thinking for a minute, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.

“Does it even matter? We can’t change the past,” he laughed bitterly.

“Actually, Bunnyx can. You just need to figure out how to change it and we can make it happen.”

Adrien marvelled at the proposition and his brilliant girlfriend because she was right! They could absolutely go back and change the past! He just had to figure out what kind of outcome he wanted the evening to have and they could manipulate the events accordingly. And although Gabriel Agreste not being Hawkmoth wasn’t an option, they still could…

Adrien contemplated each and every opportunity that came into his mind and discarded one after the other, because none of them was satisfactory. None of them was  _ right _ . Each outcome had a smaller or bigger flaw that, compared to the current situation, wasn’t an improvement. So he mentally trashed the plans, becoming more and more confused in the process, until his brain came up blank, leaving only one consecutive question behind.

Despite all of its drawbacks, was this strange situation that they were in right now the best out of all of their options? And if so, did they seriously succeed in achieving it for the first try?

Unable to come up with a fitting alternative, Adrien was forced to admit, it surely seemed like this was the best way things could have gone. Because, in the end, the villains have been unmasked and in one way or the other, they are going to face the consequences. And what was more important, the people of Paris could now live without the fear of akumatization looming over their heads. For Adrien personally, when he put his insecurities aside, the outcome was good enough that it wasn’t worth risking the alternatives.

The corners of Adrien’s mouth twitched up in a smile, as he realized, he was content with the situation. He was okay with the way things were now. 

What he had was good enough. And life wasn’t about being perfect. Life was about being good enough.

“So, what do you want to change?” the girl asked. 

Adrien shook his head as he smiled down at her in awe. 

“Nothing.”

Marinette grinned back at him contently and stood on her tiptoes to press a peck to his cheek. 

“I hoped you’d say that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I’m entertaining the idea of writing a sequel somewhen in the future, so if that is something that you’d be interested in reading, stay subscribed! I’ll let you know here, in the form of a new chapter update, if it’s coming.  
> Until then, the story is finished. Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
